Stupid

So much of my memory is in pieces.  I can remember the tiniest detail of some while other are hazy bits that are stronger to my senses than anything else. 

I can read a page and have a perfect picture of it in my mind.  But ask me what my favorite food is and I will have no way to answer that. 

I'm not really a stupid person but most of the time that is exactly how I feel.  That and embarrassed.

I wake up to find crayon colored pictures scattered all over the floor of my closet. 

I have clothes that I hate and have no idea where they came from. 

I come into conversations midstream desperately trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say.  My husband calls it my "no one's home look" where I stare off into nothing only to come back having no idea what's going on.

My husband calls me when I'm home alone and asks me what I'm doing... I have no idea because I haven't been around at all so I make up something dumb.  Like giving the dogs a bath for the third time in a week.

I have curly hair but I prefer it straightened.  Still others love to wear it curly and will do so whenever they have the chance.

I have to concentrate really hard to keep from referring to myself as we, us, our, etc... .

Each day I feel like I wake up watching a movie started in the middle that I've never seen before.  If I pay close enough attention I can figure out most of it but I always have this nagging feeling that I'm missing something.  Probably because I am.

As a kid I can see how this worked well.  I could wake up, brush my teeth and go to school and function having no memory of the hellish night before.

But now it just leaves me stupid.  Like when others decide that they don't want to take our medication.  They spit it out, hide it or now, they throw the bottles away. 

My choices to fix it: call my shrink and verify that I'm absolutely nuts; get new prescriptions filled that will cost me dearly because of how my insurance is set up; or go through the bitch of withdrawals until I can get them filled again at a normal cost.

I rarely cry but this one reduces me to tears.  It shouldn't be this hard to take care of myself.  I shouldn't have to be baby-sat, watched and followed up with.  I'm tired of being embarrassed and I'm tired of being stupid.  It shouldn't be this hard.

Blocks

Silence.  It sings when perfectly still.  With the constant banter in my mind it is hard to find a silent spot.  But when I do, I find the warmth in being all alone. 

Sleeping well evades me as I roam our home.  In the dark I am listening for that silent tune where there is no fear.  No screams.  No pain.  No awakened anguish.  These times when I'm all alone are few.  I cherish them and hope for the next time not so far away.

As a child I loved to be alone.  These were moments when I was safe.  I could play in my room for hours; always in a corner facing out but alone and content.   Even found in a closet, darkness and pieces of air could be a symphony.  The whispers of my friends were welcome but even they learned to listen to the music.

Much more pain and many more shattered friends later; the silence has all but disappeared.   Each chance to be alone I embrace.  I hope that in this time I will hear that peace I loved so much. 

But then the chatter starts and builds block upon block.  There is no safety in numbers as the distractions are so great.  Angry at the peace they have obstructed, I swing to topple those blocks.  But as they crash the sounds only grow more intense.  I stop and look at what I've done.  The damage I myself have created. 

I turn my back on them as if they have no voice.  But their tiny words pierce my mind.  I hold my head.  I pound with my fists.  I take a pill.  Nothing works to drown them out. 

In desperation I pick up a block and I see it for what it is.  A tiny piece of a careful wall constructed all around me.  Protection from the worst. 

I listen as the block begins to speak; not a scream yet not a whisper either.  I want to throw it back into the pile but instead I pick up another.  The more I listen, I realize what I always knew.

These blocks were once the safest corner in which I played.  And then he destroyed that protective angle in which I fit so perfectly.  Devastation as my childish hands picked up the bits and block by block a wall began to form.

A small stack of blocks behind me show a tiny bit of progress.  Many more blocks are scattered.  One block.  Two blocks.  Another and another.  Some are heavy.  Some are sharp and jagged.  Some are big; the cornerstones.  And then the tiniest of pieces; shattered as they bore the worst.

As I ask to listen their weight lessens.  And a painful yet simple I'm sorry smooths away their exposed rawness.  With that they are ready to find their spot in a new and wholly constructed wall.

And my strength is reinforced.

Joe

Burned, bruised and broken.  One split lip on top of another.  A line of bruises march up your back like a second spine. 

You cut your lip walking up some stairs.  The bruises come from childish horseplay. 

Nothing big.  Not for a tough kid.  Accidents happen because I'm clumsy.

Don't touch my neck.  Don't touch my shoulders.  Don't touch my back.  They all hurt but it's no big deal.

It's hidden why I can't sit down.  Why I wince as a blister pops when my shirt shifts just so.

Such a hot burn leaves such a cold bubble behind.  It's funny how that happens as if the fluid is the blister's way of saying sorry for hurting as it sizzled and later puffed with defiant pride.  A protective way to hide the tears.

As the liquid seeps on past my skin I straighten stiff to keep my uniform shirt from touching.  If I feel the coolness reach my waist I have a chance to hide the tears my ugly back always cries.

These are the tears that I do not have to cry.  They are locked within my skin reserved for burning.  Silent, secret sobs as my skin heaves with pain.

Bruises heal and skin always knits.  But my scars, they weep forever.

Jill

I see you so small.  Pink and purple hair screaming for attention.

Tiny flecks of glitter just enough to sparkle in his darkness.

A camera says that you are pretty.  He orders you to touch your shame.  Muffled threats I cannot hear but your fear speaks louder than a human word.

bad dad.  bad dad.  bad dad.

Purple spots behind the eyes as his hands wrap around my neck.  Orange rope takes their place as his hands move to hurt me.  Nearly falling asleep makes it better.  For him.  The excitement and the power are his to do as he wants.

A reminder of those special times.  A cold and stringent splash burns my nose and then my eyes.  Liquid to clean a dirty girl.  The faintest smell of dirt as I run my fingers along and catch a splinter of a forever home.  Buried with his scent forever lingering as more glitter runs away with every pour.

No more sparkle.  Just the dirt.

His suffocating smell calls out to Afraid.  If I wake I live another day in his darkness. If I die I am afraid.

Afraid no one will miss me. Afraid of a funeral with no flowers.

Forbidden

There are things I shouldn't talk about.  Because most love animals with whole hearts.

There are things I shouldn't tell.  Because dirty can be silently detected.

There are things I should never do.  Because in doing I am searing a piece of soul.

A single quiver of fear escapes through my fingers.  I pet the dog in front of me and he licks my trembling fear away.  Such a reassuring wiggle as his tail paints the air with a smile.  I find a tiny smile of my own to give in exchange for hope.

A cold fist pushes me on my back and my pink shame is exposed.  I reach for my new found comfort but then he pulls him back.  I cry for his wagging smile.  Instead a furry paw is placed in my tiny hand. 

Move your hand... he growls as his rigid fingers are tightly curled around my wrist.  Forward and backward.  He moves my hand to pet the paw.  I open my my smashed shut eyes to see the dog standing nearly next to me. 

One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  I am not petting a paw at all.

There are things I shouldn't write about.  Because this pain is more than forbidden.

Locked

I locked myself out of Blogger.  I guess that is what I get with too many people trying to run the show around here.  But after going around and around with Blogger support, I'm back now.

I'm doing alright.  Some days are better than others.  Some days are downright awful.  And some days are Disneyland.

For real. 

We went to Disneyland for vacation and my daughter had a blast.  It is always so intriguing to watch the world through her eyes and this experience was no different.  I went to Disneyland as a kid and I actually have some distinct memories of the trip.  But what my childlike thoughts were certainly do not mirror my daughter's thoughts. 

Going through "It's a Small World" was a surprise to me as a child.  So many beaming kids.  All singing the same song.  And the real kids on the ride; they were happy.  I was not.  But I remember painting on a plastic smile to match the characters while thinking... what is happening to me is not happening to these other kids... something is very wrong...

Now all these years later I am finally trying to wrap my arms around the wrong because my mind cannot comprehend it.  And that wrong these days is in my mind, my multitude of crippled friends, because the perpetrators are gone.  The wrong is frightening and so many times I want to slam and lock the door on it to take my time to intellectualize the pain.  Yet as I analyze my pain the wrong has tiny fists that pound the door.  Louder and louder; screaming for embrace until I unlock the door that acts as a threshold between my mind and my heart.

Update

I apologize for neglecting my blog.  I've been in a weird place as of late and I suppose I've spent some time pretending that all this isn't happening.  In my mind, if I don't write here then I must be fine.  Right?

Wrong.

I got over the hump of the last integration only to slide downhill into a family mess.  I have worked hard to keep my head above water and ignore the worry that comes with this shit.  And I was doing a good job until last weekend.

A breach of my intimate trust occurred nearly five years ago when my husband and I were engaged.  His relationship with his mother has always been strained for a number of complex reasons.  In an attempt to share his life with her he shared with her about me, our relationship, and what seemed to be harmless details. 

At least to him. 

When he told me about their conversation I learned that he told her about my past and my Dissociative Identity Disorder.  I have never believed that he did this with ill intent but I have always worried about her own ignorance of perception.  Because she is a truly ignorant person.

And now their conversation, as I have always worried, has come back to bite me in the ass.  For a whole other post about the reasons, she is angry with me for something I have no control over: my husband's relationship with his two kids from his previous marriage.  To pay me back she has taken my disorder, skewed it's reality, and has shared it in an open email to any family member with an email address.  All under the guise of "let's pray for her".  Like all good Christians do... and I write those words dripping with truthful sarcasm.

My husband keeps telling me that she looks worse than anyone could ever think of me.  I am having a hard time believing that.  I'm also having a hard time not being angry with him.  I know he didn't do this with the intent to hurt me five years later but the truth is that is exactly what is happening.

I have tried. I really have. But I am out of ideas or delusions that this is OK. It's not and it hurts terribly.  I am horribly embarrassed and no matter what I don't see a way out of that feeling.

Sick

Broken babies everywhere.  Fraught with shredded suffering, nothing soothes or makes them calm.  I am so afraid that I have a very sick mind. 

They scream.  They hurt.  My head throbs with psychic suffering and torment.  I am so very tired of having this twisted space of devastation within me.  Normal is relative but with simple confidence I can say that normal people do not have these images of pain.

Most memories are ones that I can endure but bleeding babies push me towards capacity.  Common people smile at me while daily acquaintances are kind and complimentary. 

If they only knew... 

If they only knew the poison that has washed over my mind.  If only they knew the images that I can never shake.  The oily suds of sin that froth and foam, they will never wash completely clean. 

I wrestle and I twist with these faces until I am overcome with the fear.  My bitter stomach churns as I reach for a familiar metal.  My hands shake with forward reaching regret until the warmth of release stings when mixed with salty tears.

My mind lurches forward as the flashbacks of the past find me unsuspecting.  The mental whiplash leaves me lost as the jarring shock brings me to my knees.  I am begging for an end; a present firmly rooted that is able to withstand the forces of his latent life. 

I am begging for relief before I am sick like him.

Integration

This past week has not been an easy one.  Not that most of my weeks are easy but this one was a greater struggle. 

Part of my healing process involves the integrating of my various personalities or "parts".  The easiest way to describe it is in watching a certain part step behind the shadows in my mind; no longer distinguished by a look or a voice.  Ever present and audible but as me instead of them.  Small fingers lace between my grownup fingers.  I squeeze a fragile hand and watch it melt into my own.

As the parts converge I often see a blending of colors.  My color is blue.  Other times I see numbers and the sum of the parts come together to equal a new whole.  But along with these hues and figures also come the tactile memories. Worn and aching to them; fresh and raw to me. 

I am flooded with these thoughts of the past and they become my present.  Feel the floor beneath my feet.  Touch the couch that I am sinking in.  I only wish these things beneath me would pull me in and past the hurting surface.  A crying child is in the corner.  A broken baby alone on the floor.  A dirty face is frozen with terror.  And he is pulling at my legs as he creeps up to control me.

These desperate children slide behind me as their pain is lifted away.  Their stories become my own; a painful anthem no one wants to hear.

Feel the couch and focus on a familiar face.  It is not real.  Just a memory.  But it is real.

Autopilot

First, thank you all for your kind, helpful, and concerned comments.  I promise I will respond to all of them shortly.

Dissociative Identity Disorder has a fascinating side to it and that is its auto-pilot feature.  I have been on autopilot these past several days with others sharing the load of my daily life while I have been checked out or dissociated if you want to get fancy with the terminology. 

Sounds unfair?  They think it is.  I take a vacation while everyone else does the work.  Not really. 

In the past, this has been closer to the case.  I would get really overwhelmed and I would check out.  Others would maintain the facade of "me" and I would return when I was up to handling life.  I am, or I should probably say we, are really, really good at this.  After nearly 30 years, this is a pretty seamless presentation.

This time was different though.  I didn't take off out of fear.  Yes, I got overwhelmed.  However, I actually did something healthy.  This time I turned my attention inward and took care of those new friends brave enough to surface after learning he was finally dead.

This was not a pleasant experience.  These friends are probably some of the worst off.  They were hurt, broken, bleeding, and despairing.  It will take me some time to put into words what took place.  But for now, I can describe that I did my best to care for them like I would my own daughter.

On to something I can explain...

While in autopilot mode, I have also had some time to really think about the process I have found myself in.  Most refer to this as a healing process and I am closer now to understanding that than ever before.  I hope that is the case at least.

I am a former athlete.  I abused my body, pushed myself beyond injury, and never paid attention to pain screaming orders to stop whatever it was that I was doing.  And I have paid.  And I still pay with arthritis that runs through multiple joints starting when I was in my mid-twenties.

I have had two shoulder surgeries, two knee surgeries, and two foot surgeries.  All reconstructive including a shoulder replacement when I was 20.  Yeah, I know. 

Surgery is never fun.  Anesthesia is rough on me; I am slow to wake up.  The pain... well, it hurts.  You take pills to control that pain that make you nauseous.  And then if you are me, you get addicted to those pills and that is an entirely different bitch of a process and another post all on its own.

Day one, surgery day, is a blur.

Day two is better.

Day three... you might as well be dead.  That's my experience at least.

Day four is once again better.  Point being that the pain typically peaks before the healing process really takes off.  And here is where I begin to pray that my father's death was the peak of my pain.  Or at least the leading catalyst for real healing. 

When I woke up this morning I found myself thinking this is my day four...

I will always have arthritis.  I will also always have the dull and painful ache of memories.

I will always have the scars of my athletic career.  But if you ask me to show you my surgery scars, with a vague amount of pride I will.  I will point to one and tell you how I got it, how I endured, and yeah it hurt but I was tough and made it through.

I will also always have the scars of abuse and reminders of my past.  But one day I hope I will be able to point to them with another small sense of pride and tell you how I survived, how tough I was, how I made it through.

And how I began to thrive.  Here's to day four. 

Hidden

I thought that being dead, he would no longer haunt me.  Tucked away in the corner of my mind are found over fifty hidden children.  Nameless, with faces containing nothing but a mouth, they are dirty, bruised, and broken. 

He now simple ashes, they are limping... crawling... carrying one another forward.  In groups of two they are crossing into my conscious stream.  In the light of my mind's eye I am horrified by what I see.   A pupil widens and then is fixed with pain.  Unresponsive, I do nothing but squeeze a single blink of disbelief. 

A razor sharp child slices as I extend a forced, yet hopeful hand.  As drops of blood pool, I become the injured helping the walking wounded and I am filled with doubt.  I do not know how I will be able to continue this.  How does a sick and injured doctor care for an even more ill and disfigured patient?

One single child reaches my feet and as she does she brushes her dirty hair aside and I see one possibility of an eye behind the matted hair.  Behind a squint in the light, I see an unmistakable muddied crystal blue eye. 

Mine. 

Hidden from light for many years.  But not from his terror.  Hidden from love.  Hidden from care.  As I look into this eye I am freshly exposed to his ravages.  I am no longer hidden but face to face, and I am flooded with his unmistakable memories.

They won't stop.

Husband

I have a good husband.  I was very fortunate this time around.  Husband # 1 was a first class nightmare who also found himself enmeshed with my family from a young age. 

We were doomed before we even thought about dating.

My second time around I knew better what I was looking for and I found someone reasonably healthy.  No, my husband isn't perfect but I am sure that everyone here also knows that I am far from perfect as well.  I wish I could say that I have been an open book with him but I cannot.  He knows I have a past.  He knows I had a ruthless childhood.  He also knows I have D.I.D and he has done enough reading to know what kind of abuse causes such a disorder.  Prolonged and severe; he knows these things about me.  He "knows" my alters.  Some of them like him, some of them don't have much to do with him.  Others spend a great deal of energy trying to make him leave us. 

Except he doesn't leave.  Thank God.

When we were engaged we met with my therapist together and he got the short version of D.I.D, what living with me would look like, things to avoid, and things to do.  I was able to tell him that I was abused and that there are things in my past that I do not want to talk about with him.  All this he was fine with.  And he has remained fine; frustrated at times but still fine.

I used to journal on paper a lot.  And then he found one of my journals, read it, and all hell broke loose.  So I stopped writing until I began writing on this blog.  This has been a lifesaver for me to write here.  I have shared excerpts of my writings here with him but I have not freely shared the link.  It would not be the end of the world if he found this blog but I like it better knowing that I can write without censoring and having to answer questions about the day's blog post over dinner.  Talk about indigestion...

But now I am at a crossroads; my family is gone and with them died a lot of secrets.  My husband believes that I do not have a relationship with my father or mother and that my sister passed away... many years ago.  Knowing what he knows about D.I.D he has always been fine with us having no contact with them.  Now however, why am I still holding on to many of these secrets?

Anger is one reason.  My husband will be angry over much of what was done to me.  That anger will make me vastly uncomfortable.  And further, I have yet to justify causing someone to be angry for no profitable reason.  So why make him angry?

I fear what he will think of me; this is another reason.  What if he believes that I am a whore?  What if he realizes how fucked up I really am?  It boils down to my fear that he will believe what I already believe about myself.  And if we both believe the worst about me does that then mean that we will be doomed too?

That is my greatest fear.

Smile

My chest is pounding quick and frantic lumps.  I hear the feet crush the padding of the carpet.  It is only a whisper but I feel those steps ring inside my ears.  I bury further under my thin and naked sheet in hopes that I will turn invisible before the feet reach my room.

I squish my eyes until I see colors blur behind my eyelids.  I love this trick because it makes the darkness not so scary.  My door opens and then shuts and a shadowed figure moves towards my too small bed.  If my bed was bigger I think I could get away. 

A cold and metal finger presses against my tiny, trembling lips.  This finger has a jagged edge and as it presses further I feel a pop from my lip and a taste of metallic blood.  Shhhhh... is what this finger says without a sound or word.  I simply know.

My only screams tonight will echo inside the halls of my head.  Echoing because no one hears them.  My screams bounce and rattle around, desperate and lonely.

His other hand roams around and past my naked sheet.  There is nothing to hide behind.  Up one leg and rubbing down the other he moves deliberately and with purpose.  His breathing is quick and matches my own fearful panting.  With one knee he pins one small leg.  And with the other he has now widened my fearful body into a grown-up X.

One sweaty hand.  One jagged, steely cold finger. 

Don't move an muscle... don't you make a sound... you are too small... going to make you bigger, little girl. 

The sharp and jagged finger is cold against my anxious skin.  Skin is popping.  Widening pain. And my terror is stretched further than ever before.  Jasmin slips in front and I fade into James' hurting arms.  He is heavy upon me and he smiles a strange and upside down smile.  

I will never forget that hateful smile.  And I will never see him again.  He is dead.

For sure.

Tears

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 fucked 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 boy younger than my own daughter.  She's six.  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 blonde 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.

Your friend,

Shattered

Flat

So today is a new day and I'm trying again.  I must sound like a wreck because when readers start asking me if I have a therapist, it's then that I realize how bad I sound.  And for my newer readers, yes, I do have a therapist who I have been seeing for quite some time.  At least once a week.

Reading over my post from yesterday, I did sound depressed and I was.  I still am.  And once again I am at the point of retreating to the hills of my head or sticking with the present.  I am learning that this is a choice.  It is a hard choice too. 

But in making that choice I am learning a lot about myself.  I don't do stress.  I don't do pain.  "Flat" was the word that kept coming up in therapy yesterday evening.  I've given it a lot of thought between then and now because I argued last night that flat was easier than feeling. 

I was wrong.

Flat really is hard.  Exhausting.  And I think I create a lot more stress and pain, the very things I try to avoid, for myself in trying to be flat.  I really thought that this was how people wanted me to be.  However, as I look at my emotional responses to others, I can see that my flat response was the last thing they needed or even wanted. 

I do not know how to change this overnight.  Flat used to my safe.  If I showed no emotion, the chances of being hit a lot or worse went down.  Flat let me mirror the emotions around me and let me remain invisible.  I focused on other's feelings instead of my own.  I thought this was safe.  But in doing so I added layer upon layer on my own pain which seems to fester into depression.

I have one assignment for the next week.  Cry.  And cry some more.  When I am in the car I am supposed to cry.  That is a long way from flat and I am scared.  What if people don't like my emotions?  My trademarks are levelheaded, calm, logical, a rock... all a nice version of flat. 

My next step: call my shrink and tell her that I don't have any of my meds nor have I been taking them because "someone" threw them away.  I've been too embarrassed to make that call but I need to.  I also need to do some housekeeping in here and figure out "who" threw them out.  And after that...

Cry some more.

Friend

What's that line... hello, darkness, my old friend...? 

My friend is making a raging comeback.  Yippee.

I do not know exactly what has brought this on but I am knocked down, sideways and can't get up depressed.  Those irritating Cymbalta commercials showing depressed people sucking at living?  That's me minus roaming around aimlessly in sweatpants because I don't wear sweatpants.

I just stay in my pajamas.

I don't have the luxury of sleeping the day away or even lying in bed with my eyes open praying that a spontaneous lobotomy will occur.  I have a kid, I have a job, I have judo, gymnastics, and swim team to attend, and I have a rather important (to me) husband who occasionally would like to see me out of pajamas and showered with a smile on my face.  It's a rough life these days.

The thing is, I do shower, smile and dress nicely.  It's my mind that is still wearing pajamas and perhaps that is where the conflict begins.  I am fucking exhausted and I honestly believe that there is not a soul on earth that understands where I am coming from.  Try as he may, my husband doesn't get it and he substitutes his confusion with anger.  I don't do anger so I just shut up and stay quiet.  I certainly am not talking to my daughter about this and I don't have any girlfriends to call up and bitch about my fucked up life.

So here I am.

I told my husband this morning that I am a really fucked up person and it is really hard to live.  His response was to yell at me that I'm not fucked up.  Right.  Everyone he meets hears voices, sees people who aren't there, and wishes they could carve the feeling part of their brain right out of their skull.  Right.  I'm definitely not fucked up.

Love him.

But seriously, I'm tired.  I walk a mental high wire, balancing with hate in one hand and sorrow in the other.  And then I crash with only my pretend friends to catch me.  The reality of my horrors catches up with me on occasion and now is one of those times.  I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can barely think.  The Shelter is screaming and I can't help those babies enough.  I am getting that familiar feeling that I am not the one made for this job.

What this boils down to is that I hate my parents.  I hate what they did and I hate what they allowed.  That hate is consuming me and I feel myself getting angry so I turn the hatred on myself.  It is easier to hate me.  It is safer.

Until I run out of room for cutting.

And I'm there; I have no more hidden skin available.  This is usually where I retreat deep inside but I'm not OK accepting that this time.  Problem is, I don't know where to go.

Lost

I get lost.  In my own head. 

According to my husband, I have been alarmingly quiet lately.  I don't mean to.  Really.  It just happens.

After a screaming match culminating with said husband telling me to get the fuck out of my head; I told him that I am lost in the darkness of my voices.

I have my friends.  Best friends that I have had for years.  Our friendships have endured the well-worn time and lately I have been spending an increasing amount of time with them.  While I read, sew, crochet, quilt, and even sleep, they are there and we talk.  They are my comrades in a perpetual war; one that never stops, one that has wounds that never heal just right.  They know me and they understand me.

But they are not real.  And that makes me weird and quiet.

I have nothing audible to say.  My voice is locked inside my thoughts, my hurts, my scars.  I hurt but how does one verbalize horror?  Horror in the movies is simply expressed in screams both silent and audible, twisted faces, running, backing into a corner, all until one is consumed completely by the evil.

To say that I am scared is an insult.  I am terrified.  I am haunted.  I live in horror.  I have joked before about what kind of writer I could be and I always conclude that I would be one hell of a horror author.  I love Stephen King yet I can read very few of his books because ironically, they scare me.  However, when I can, I have to wonder what happened to him?  Horror does not come naturally to most human minds.

I am struggling at this moment.  What I wrote in my previous post has sent me reeling.  It is horror in black and white.  Black and white that is vivid color in my memory because it is my life.  These silent times are when depression grows taller and wraps its dense, dark grip around my mind, my body, my eyes.  The darkness is in the corner of my eyes, just out of sight, no matter where I look.

I paint a smile on and talk to people all day long.  But in those same dark corners on my eyes I have to wonder what if they only knew.  And if they did know would they be as lost as me?

Angels

*I wrote this along with Nobody.  We share this experience, with her carrying the bulk of the hurt, so it's only right to let her write and share her part as well*

Dead angels.

I have heard that screamed every day and night for years.

There are three of them.  Three dead angels.  I was bad; a whore to be exact.  Tiny orange pills were to keep me safe.  Green ones gave my body a break.  I did not take the pills like I should have.  They made me sick. 

After one dead angel I was supervised.  I became the master of the hidden pill.  A bitter taste swelling under my tongue was worth the deception of a calm stomach.  I didn't really understand the mechanics of the orange and green.  Had I known, perhaps the nausea would have made sense.

Sinner... whore... murderer... hell... bloody images...

Their words, their signs, their chants, their pictures; they seared my young heart.   Perched on a metal chair, next to my angry mother, I really had no idea what to expect.  The room was filled with other anxious women, a few boyfriends, out of date magazines, and somehow all eyes followed a crooked path to me.  I did not belong.  I was just a kid with a really big secret. 

It was my turn as I blindly followed a nurse behind a swinging door.  With a hushed and hateful whisper my mother sent me off alone. 

You disgust me...  I know.  Me too.

In another metal chair I said that I understood what had happened and what was going to happen.  My mother's hurried signature allowed them to take care of my problem.  No one seemed to care how old I was and no one ever wondered how I got into this mess.  They knew what I had known for years.  I was a whore, no questions asked.

Two dead angels later, I knew what was going on.  Tired of metal chairs, The Christians, flimsy gowns, and whispered assumptions, I hid this one.  With no real plan I dressed a little bigger and prayed that something would save me.  And save the angel.

His wandering eyes and hands caught me this time.  She refused to take me.  She refused to be humiliated again.  It was his turn. 

This time it was different.  He was caring and concerned.  He rubbed my back and I was scared.  This angel was older and this was not as easy.  Pain... more bleeding... heavier sedation... stay home from school... I pretended not to hear these medical suggestions.

Quietly the room began to shift.  The walls began to twist and soon I did not mind the flimsy gown, the bright lamp, or the gasping machine.  I was not alone this time.  He stood next to me and stroked my hair.  I closed my eyes and another angel died.

In the car, we did not go home.  I waited in the car and he checked us into a motel.  Relieved that I did not have to go back to school this time, I closed my eyes again and woke up in a musty room, naked on a tortured bed.

He was sitting next to me and as my eyes focused, I could squarely see the reason we were there.  He stroked my face and placed his hand upon my cramping stomach.  The warmth of his hand felt good against my pain.  He pressed harder and leaned in closer.  The care had left his eyes and though I searched, all I could find was lust and selfishness.  I wanted to go back to school.

I closed my eyes again and wished for more sedation.

*I(Nobody)  open my eyes and he is fucking me.  He likes the sloppy remnants of the day.  In and out until his eye squint and lurch up into his head.  Bastard.  He fucks us up and now this.  I fucking hate him.  I am Nobody and I have taken her place.  Enough is enough and now he gets to deal with me. 

He is finished as he withdraws and with a sneer he says that he doesn't have to worry about knocking us up.  What a nice day for him.  I feel like shit so I close my eyes to rest. 

I awake to find his stubby hands running up and down the body.  I try to ignore the pain but it is not going to go away.  In he is as I wince and grit my teeth with pain.  He thrusts harder and I don't know how long I am going to be able to hang on.  With my hands I twist the scratchy sheets to cling to something.  In a quickened moment he is out as I feel the body's insides collapse into the void he left.

In one more moment his face is buried between our legs as he forces them further apart to make more room for his bastard body.  He is there, at the near-center of the pain.  We aren't the filthy one; he is.  I am becoming more and more upset.  I don't do upset but this is just fucking awful.  New secrets are being born today, those that I will have to keep for myself.

My mind drifts away as he continues his play.  I don't understand the point of this or what pleasure he is getting.  He is a freak and I want him to stop.  And now, as if he heard my thoughts, he raises up and I am horrified at the sight of what is on his lips.  I raise up on my elbows and dig my heels into the lumpy bed only to escape into the headboard.  He crawls forward and leans over and towards me.  He forces his face upon mine, lips to my quivering lips, and he thrusts his putrid tongue into my mouth. 

I feel as though we will suffocate and I begin to hope we will.  I twist my head to get away and that makes him fight even harder.  After minutes of eternity, he pulls away.  Hot tears are streaming down my face and I have lost my cool.  I have failed her.  He sits back on his heels and smiles a bloody smile.  I smear my tears away as he leans in again. 

As his lips near mine again, he tells me what I already know.

Taste your baby...

Fuck him.

How

As I consider the New Year, I consider the typical responses.

 A fresh start... a better year... putting to bed a bad year... this year will be better.

I have never seen a new year as anything.  Perhaps an excuse to get drunk and maybe not alone.  That is the extent.

A fresh start is a foreign body to me.  To do that would be to erase the memories, the scars, the voices in my head, the shadow people in the corners of nearly every room I enter.  All are impossible.  Especially when there are many, many memories below the frozen surface of my mind.  Frozen in time; so cold that it hurts. 

A perpetual brain freeze.  I wish for just one day without this pain.

No fresh start for me.  What I can do though, is obsess over the how of my life.  I have pretty much given up on the why.  There is just no good answer there; at least not at this point.

How doesn't have to do with other people.  It has to do with me.  How the fuck did I survive?

There are a lot of awful childhood verses sung; a creepy uncle, a leering step-dad, a secret priest, an angry mother, a lost and groping sibling.  Each verse different yet fraught with painful similarities and fragile coping. 

And then there is me.  And others like myself.  I am shattered and still standing yet I have no idea how I got here or how I figured out that this was a life worth surviving. 

How did I not give up?

How did I put one aching foot in front of the other, day after day?  Night after night?  

How did I barely sit down at breakfast each morning believing that our dance in the dark was a household brand?

How did they know just how far to go?  Close enough to fearful pleasure.  Far enough from impersonal death. 

It is a precarious how.

Stupor

Surprisingly, my parents drank a lot.  Surprised? 

Me neither.

Their parties were always something to behold.  Free flowing liquor, wine, and none of the cheap stuff.  I knew a party was upon us when the liquor store mobilized and brought their goods directly to our doorstep.

I loved the labels.  The fancy colors.  The carefully branded shape of each bottle.  Into the corks I would dig my small fingernails.  I have no recollection as to why those corks felt so fascinating.

The nights of these events were the highlights of my worn and tired years.  Free to roam, just out of sight of his lustful radar, I pretended these parties were for me.  A celebration of good grades, an acknowledgement of good behavior, a bash just because I was me.

So many people.  Beautiful and handsome.  Smiling, laughing, pouring, drinking, spilling, expounded tales, more hysterical laughter.  These were the highlights.  Half empty glasses cast aside to make a ring on an unsuspecting table; I would rescue such table by picking up the offending glass.  My remedy: throw my head back and gulp the burning liquid.  To me these glasses were half full.  My eyes always sprung singular tears in response to the fire in my throat.  Glass after glass; these were tears of joy. 

My life grew better with each set of tears.  Wobbly eyes made her look a little happier, him less intense and leering.  My parents looked like the people I wanted them to be. 

From a distance I could see how others saw them and it made me happy.

Ultimately, these evenings never ended well.  When my tired haze could no longer hold its own I found a bed.  But I wasn't the only attendee who was on the verge of bedtime.   Warm from the inside out I would fall into an easy sleep.  Until I found someone weighing heavily upon me.  What should have been scared, instead I did not mind.  It was easier.  I was easier.  My drunken warmth relaxed me and whomver it was slid easily inside.  No mistaken tears, no overwhelming pain, no staggering fear. 

Alcoholic breath breathes deeply into my being.  Sloppy lips bring me out.  A joyful stupor makes me fun.  My smile comes easy.  No faking of any sorts.  I am awake and I am so alive.  I dance, I flirt, I tease, one after another needs are made whole.  Art and beauty are created.

I am Lively.  Fun for now.  A painful child deferred for later.