It

I'm not scared of It anymore.

It is not a mythical beast sent to conquer.

Don't get too close.  It might be the end of you.

You are too close to It's risk.  A sad statistic.

You are just like them.  It will snatch you soon.  He whispers this our one last time.

His familiar heaviness makes It real.  The forbidden rhythm numbs the pain. 

The only tears I cry are as his life drips with sticky shame.

Just like that.  They are gone.  It pulled them under.  Freshly gone; we are left. 

Like daggers he speaks.  I have you all.  To myself.  Just like we always wanted. 

Together; until It soils you too.

How might you do It?

Different than they.

Take my belt.  And when you do It.  Feel my final hands remove the life that only I could give.

I still have the belt.  Well worn.  A staple of my life. 

The gatekeeper of his piercing. 

The weapon fashioned making skin so raw.

Crammed away I hear It taunt.  It teases with It's destiny.

I remain after him but his hold lives on in leather form.

Too afraid to touch It.  His belt is my own It.  The last connection.

My pieces.  Myself.  We beg to throw It away.

That belt.  It.  His final grip.

I can only hope that courage wins to turn It over.  To will It gone.  Forever.

Until It is just a distant, formless it.

Sleep

I am tired.  I live in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation.

get more sleep... that's the recommendation. 

Sure.  No problem.  As if I enjoy defying sleep patterns.  I don't stay up all night having a party by myself.  I stay awake because it's terrifying to sleep.

I close my eyes.  I feel my head on the pillow; my hands touch the sheets.  It's dark and my heart starts to pound.  The bed begins to spin.  My head screams and my chest aches as I wait.  Wait for nothing.  I am waiting for a dead man who lives on so vividly in my mind.  Wait for the night where he does not appear.

I know that a few hours a night isn't good.  It's also not good to sleep in the corner on the floor.  I do both with freakish mastery. 

I go through periods of time where I can tolerate sleeping in a bed.  But I can't stomach it right now.  So while my anxiety is racing, I wait for my husband to fall asleep.  And then I move.  Corners are safe.  And the floor isn't a bed.

Bad things happen on beds.

After a few hours of hard fought sleep my corner is awake as he approaches in the dark.  I stand and slip out of the room where my husband never wakes.  I turn on the lights as the dead man begins to fade.  He wishes me good night and with a wink he tells me he will see me soon.

I clean.  I read.  I write.  I draw.  I make my husband coffee and pretend that I haven't been up all night.  The early light melts the terror as dreadful relief lets me know another night has passed with a new day on the brink.

My eyes are clouding with that familiar ache.  A dark periphery is depression's single warning.  I fight to keep my eyes open; to keep my vision clear.  But heavy eyelids pull the sadness in as I contemplate the Sleep.

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.

Broken

It happened again.  A complete and total meltdown in public.  Not even two weeks after the first occurrence.

Short of stuffing cotton in my nose; I don't know how to stop panicking at the first smell of a certain green bottle with a little gold horse on the front.

I tell myself it's not him.  I tell myself that I'm safe.  I tell myself to take deep breaths.  I touch something to remind my senses where I am.

Screaming.  Yelling.  Tears.  Sobs.  Strange and worried looks.

It's fucking embarrassing to be this broken.  Of course it's all his fault.  But he is not the one coming unglued in all the broken places.  So that must mean that it's my fault that I can't get just over it all.

This is a really good reason why you shouldn't fuck your daughter.

Family

After Christmas we went to visit family.  My fathers two sisters and their families.

I agonized over going or not going.  I've lost so much of my family so I get a little weird about what I have left.  As the time got closer I really began to worry.  I didn't make the final decision until the morning we were due to leave.

I didn't spend a lot of time with them growing up.  The majority of holidays were spent with my mothers family.  I have fond memories of his sister just a few years younger than him.  She married a very nice man and they had two daughters.  I always watched in amazement at how they were with their dad.  They weren't scared of him and he was nice, but not too nice, to them.  And then their mom; she hugged them, spoke kindly to them, and it was obvious that she loved them.  I remember secretly wishing that they could be my parents.

His youngest sister; not so many good memories.  She, my father and I all look alike.  I have always despised looking like him and I'm pretty sure she hates it too.  She has always been a little on the crazy side.  But I also know and understand what is wrong with her. 

him.

We stayed with the oldest sister and stayed up late talking each night.  A lot of the conversations were nice but there were others that left me with the wind knocked out of me.  Her husband went to high school with my father and said that he was the meanest person he has ever known.  Because of that, combined with my mother, he didn't think I had a chance in hell to turn out even halfway OK.  Given that, they weren't surprised about my sister.

My aunt began the first night with an apology because they knew that things were going on but didn't say much or do anything about it. 

I told her that it was fine.  It's really not but what good does it do to cause her more distress over something that cannot be changed?

My uncle talked about walking in on my father with me.  He wasn't sure exactly what he saw but my father quickly told him that he was putting me to bed.  My uncle wondered how that was since I had been put to bed three hours before.  He never said anything.

My aunt told us about one conversation with my father.  She was concerned with how rough he was with my sister and me.  She made the observation that it looked like he was trying to raise little soldiers.  Robots would have been more accurate.  He got mad and they didn't see us again for three or four years.

There were other things too... my bruises, scars, behavior, strange fears, and just odd behavior in general.  I was not a typical kid.

I was also told how my father was sent to live with their grandparents because he kept hurting his sisters and their family pets.  He was sick from very early on.

I had little interaction with his other sister and that is probably best.  She's nice enough but she is also drunk most of the time and hasn't been the best of mothers to her own children.  She is on her third marriage after marrying two abusive creeps.

On one of the nights, her daughter approached me because she needed to ask some questions.  She told me some horrible things that her mother said to her about not wanting her when she was pregnant.  It all sounded very familiar but all I could tell her was that I was very sorry. 

Then she asked about her biological father.  She wanted to know if I remembered him messing with me or my sister.  The short answer was yes.  The longer answer was that my father found out and almost killed him.  And not for the right reasons either. We didn't see them for awhile and I never saw that uncle again.  He eventually terminated his rights to my cousin and her older brother.

She told me that her biological father abused her and that she was in counseling.  She said that she was making progress but she needed to hear it from someone else that he really was a monster.  Her mother has never been supportive of her and always dismissed it as she was imagining things, making things up, or just crazy.  That also sounded very familiar.

I also understood her need to hear the confirmation from something other than her own memory.  I have always held on to that tiny bit of denial that I was just crazy or imagined it happening.  I received that same confirmation on this trip.

Does it make me feel better? 

Not really.

I've lost the security I had in my tiny piece of denial.  In the past when I have really felt bad, I would make myself feel better by using that denial.  Now I don't have that safety net and that is frightening.  I am also forced to accept what happened and who they really were.

And then there is the obvious reason that none of this made me feel better. 

If they knew that things were going on. 

Witnessed things with their own eyes and ears. 

Knew what he was capable of. 

Knew that my mother was crazy too. 

Why the fuck didn't they do anything?!?

I get that they were scared and maybe even intimidated but shit, they have two daughters of their own.  Wouldn't they want someone to speak up if something had been happening to their girls??

It's always nice to reconnect with family over the holidays.  Especially the part when they tell you they knew that their brother, your father, was fucking you all along.

Fuck them.

Intersect

I see him coming and there is no place for me to go.  The one way out is the way that he will walk in. 

I can smell him twenty feet away. 

Through glass. 

Through a door.

The room begins to spin and collapse around me.  I tell myself that it's not him; that would be impossible.  My mind.  My nose.  My body.  They all betray me.

He walks through my door.  I offer a simple handshake.  I hope that a brief touch will flood my shattered mind with the calm of reality. 

That's not him.  He means no harm.  And then my reassurance turns into frenzied questions.

A handshake turns into a hug.  Too much contact as his cologne seeps into my every sense.  Glass shatters as my mind spins in sync with the room.

A painful haze fills the room.  My vision narrows into a tiny point.  A push.  And then a shove.  Obscenities spewed propel me backwards as a corner of the room folds me in as protection.

My back slides down the wall as I crouch to hide my face.  The two walls meet and wrap their arms around me.   I rock as I listen for the silence.  The calm.

But instead as the haze lifts I hear the racking sobs of a wounded someone. 

Tears like razors spill into my protective hands.  They cut my hands as each one drops.  I shake and pound my head into the walls. 

Those sobs are mine and I can hardly breathe.  I squeeze my eyes so tight to stop the tears.  They subside but I do not open them afraid that the monster is still there.

A voice calls my name. 

Another warns not to touch me.

One eye opens.  And then the other.  I shiver as I see the worried faces.

No shards of glass.  No wounded hands.  His smell still lingers but he is gone.  The shrinking room has expanded to an endless space of shame. 

Another hand offers me a way out of my corner.  I brush away my tears but my face burns hot with shame. 

It has finally happened.  My past has found a way to intersect with my public life.

Prolonging

I need a break.  A respite from my feelings.  I know that must sound strange assuming that most like to feel; it's how they know that they are alive.  Me, my feelings taunt me and remind me that I'm not dead.  Flashback after flashback invade my frazzled mind and body until my pounding heart is breaking in the wake of no relief.

How long have you felt depressed?

I don't remember not feeling depressed...

When was the last time you felt happy?

I have fleeting moments of happiness...

When did the abuse begin?

I don't remember not being abused...

I started seeing a new shrink and those were some of her questions and then some of my answers.  There was a rhythm to my replies which involved prolonged misery. 

I want to feel better so I go to a shrink.  I take medication.  I see my therapist.  I feel and it hurts like hell but I think that I am working hard and at some point it will pay off.  But then there is a lingering suspicion he knew that even after he was gone his evil would still haunt and hurt me.

What kind of person brings a child into this world and shapes her childish life to know nothing but confusion, pain and sadness?  Terror that she longs to stop even after you are gone.  I bet he's laughing now knowing that I'm still pleading with the hurt to end.

Status

Just like everyone else, I am glancing backwards at 2010.  Good year.  Bad year.  Something in between...

My father is dead.
I told some secrets.
I made some quilts.
I was promoted.
I learned a lot.
I cried some more.
I made a friend.
I returned to church.
I integrated broken pieces.
I am alive.

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.

Vices

I started this blog with the need to be honest.  Good or bad.  I write a lot about my past, my secrets, my hurts, and a little about my feelings. 

I have a present tense life as well.  However, my present has always been wrapped up in my past.  And my future, well I honestly could not imagine one.  I have never been one to even dream of a day down the road.  I grew up living day to day.  Even moment by moment.

My father's death has changed a lot.  I held my breath with every phone call, knock at the door, even a familiar cologne or voice.  I don't have to do this anymore and it is the strangest feeling.  I have a present life.  And possibly even a future.

So now as I look at my present I see that it is a tangled mess of feelings, numbness, bad habits and addictions.  I have never cared about these things before.  Because I had no future.

Here is the ugly truth.  My husband told me that I am an alcoholic the other night.  I told him that he was full of shit.  After discussing my drinking habits in therapy last night I asked my therapist if I was one and without a taking a breath or even a pause his answer was "yes". 

Nice.

And another ugly truth.  I eat too much.  I guess that's called binging.  And then I throw up.  Purging.  And then I won't eat at all.  And after that I will binge again.  I have done this for years.  My food issues run very deep.  Food is one of the earliest ways that I remember my parents abusing me.

And yet another.  I cut.  That one is pretty straightforward. 

I know that all these things need to stop.  They hurt me.  Some worse than others.  And worse, these things hurt the people who love me.  But I would be lying if I said that replacing these habits doesn't scare me shitless. 

Food.  Alcohol.  A blade.  These things have been constants in my life.  My friends.  What I run to when I'm sad, hurting, numb, lonely.  Even happy.  So I am looking for some new constants.  Healthy ones.

I don't really know what I want by writing this.  I suppose I just want to be honest about where I am and where I need to be headed.

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.

Surprise

Sitting on a small couch last night, I felt as if I was sitting on the corner of some cosmic world.  Alone.  Completely alone.  And this particular world was not round; rather it was square.  Square because there is no circular justice.  Not unless you count being tortured and murdered as some sort of redemptive revenge.

And then I felt injustice pressing squarely behind my tired eyes.  What has happened is not just.  Nor is it fair because they have made their exits and I have survived.

Everyone is dead... that keeps ringing in my head.  I know that is not the precise case but in my own twisted world, everyone is, in fact, dead.

So now I sit week after week, even moment after moment, left to deal with their abuse, their hatred, their woundings, and their deaths.  Then there are my scars, my memories, my terrors, and all the collateral damage that comes with being a member of this disappearing family.  Theirs and Mine: two separate and fancy walk-in closets full of skeletons and ghosts tucked away in every nook and custom built drawer specifically designed for keeping the best and most wrenching secrets.  What an inheritance.

All this while their ashes stir peacefully in the smallest pockets of square cosmic spaces.

Death let them off the hook.  And now I feel that I am on the hook for the lion's share of the damage.  This hurts deeply; deeper than I ever imagined.  This surprises me.  I knew and yes, I fantasized, that this day would come.  And here it is and I writhe alone. 

But with this pain I have also discovered a considerable peace.  I can sleep.  Really sleep.  I have never slept well, even as a married adult sleeping in a safe environment.  From the day he fled I held my breath dreading his return.  Checking on my daughter five times a night was nothing strange.  I had to know that he was not in her room.  And with that knowledge I stole another hour of sleep.  So now I sleep surprised, soundly and deeply. 

While I always knew this day would arrive, I never believed it would. We are no longer looking over our collective shoulder. 

And that freedom is a complete, yet lost, surprise.

Enmeshed

en·mesh (n-msh) also im·mesh (m-)

tr.v. en·meshed also in·meshed, en·mesh·ing also in·mesh·ing, en·mesh·es also in·mesh·es

To entangle, involve, or catch in or as if in a mesh.

 

Used in a sentence: Shattered is enmeshed in a complex web of lust, love, and abuse.

 

Dear Ruth commented on how deeply embedded my parents are in every aspect of my being.  And possibly more so than the typical adult child.  This thought caught me falling off balance it wasn't until I fell to the ground that I took a hard look at the truth of this idea.

 

And she was right.

 

My sense of normal has always been skewed.  Well meaning people always insist to me that there is no "normal" and I have always smiled and accepted their offering of kindness. 

 

However, I'm finally going to have to flatly refuse that well meant advice because what sense of normal I have always had is certainly no where close to the typical yet non-existent normal.  Ruth brought this thought to the surface when I had to look at the possibility that in many ways, I was more connected to my parents than the typical adult.  Just like I used to think that everyone heard voices in their heads; I also thought that this enmeshment was normal.

 

But it is not.  Not even close.

 

I lived and died by my parents hands.  I starved and was fed at their discretion.  I was his companion and her demise.  I was his lover and her deepest competition.

 

And all these roles were diametrically opposed to the single role that should have existed.  Parent and child.

 

It is creepy, weird, dirty, strange and wrong but my father was my first lover.  And I use the word lover very loosely but to a daughter starving and begging for affection, that is exactly what he was.  A sexual bond existed between us that served him well to emit his constant control.  For many who read here, one can probably equate this bond to your first love; they are someone you have moved on from but you never quite forget.

 

My problem is that I never really moved on from him.  He was unforgettable.  He cast his net wide and though I struggled I never was quite free.  I was trapped in his warped lust because I carried a bond of both a child to a parent but also a bond that intimate partners share.  But now he has moved on from me.  And I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel a deep twinge of impure loss.

 

No wonder I am so very fucked up and confused.  Every single day has been a struggle lately.  My only solace is that this is finally over and with each step I take I am walking out on this distorted love.

 

I hope.

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.

Badness

I am learning there were two versions of truth. 

His truth.

And then the truth. 

Forgive me because none of this is black or white.  Nothing is as it seems and this is so fucking confusing.  Ever since I received this news I have had an overwhelming sense of guilt.  Shame.  In little kid terms... badness.

Small voices repeat... bad people get killed... he was bad... he was our dad... so we are bad... over and over and over.  These are anxious words wrapped with fear.  Fear that we are next.  An irrational fear yet a real anxiety.

How could I be good yet come from them?  I get that they were bad.  Exceptionally bad.  So how did I get here when badness raised me?

Bad little kids don't have parents... If you tell then you will get taken away...  And then you won't have parents... Because you were bad.

And now we have no parents.

Quite honestly, I am lost.  I pace the floors all night.  My chest is full with pounding butterflies.  I stare at the food on each plate.  A cold sweat overcomes me with each police car I see.  My mind wanders through each day waiting for that phone call.  The call that makes this all official and I wonder how it will go.  I wonder how I will react.  And what I fear the most is that I will have no reaction whatsoever.

And in that lack of reaction, my badness will commence.

Conflicted

Life seems to be measured best in approximates currently.  I have a difficult time explaining that I am fine, sad, good, grieving, angry, or relieved.  Approximate values, however, can be assigned to the various feelings. 

Approximating allows me to change.  To fluctuate.  To estimate something that may change at a later time.  This works because I am nearly every conflicting feeling all rolled into one.  Conflicted is perhaps the only feeling that is consistent.  Conflicted is my stalwart feeling.  My rock.  It is always there.  No matter what.

I love him.  I hate him.

I need him.  I do not want him.

I trust him.  He hurts me.

conflict.  Conflict.  CONFLICT. 

No matter how you shape it, spell it, or write it; it is there.

Chances are, it is him.  In my gut I feel it.  And from that feeling I know that death is  the worst feeling a stomach can own.  With each moment of decay, that rotting feeling in my own body grows.  His decay is my decay.  I cannot eat, drink, or sleep.  I am terrified that in my sleep I will not wake up and in that time we will meet.

More alive than ever before; he is in my nightmares.  His rotting flesh makes my own creep with fear.  His missing fingers I have found.  They are in my sleep and reaching towards me.

Once awake I am sad.  And I am guilty.  I survived and I fear I did not do enough to save him.  I did not make him a better father.  A better husband.  Nor a better human.  That one more chance I withheld.  Buried beneath my fears, his chance died an unnatural death.

Could I have done something more? 

Loved him better?

Loved him differently?

Hated him completely?

My head and my heart are conflicted.  And my memories are conflicted too. 

I remember the man who bought me a treasured doll.  I remember the man who brought me ice cream home from the store.  I remember a man that patted me on the head.  I remember the man who gave me my love of reading.  I remember the man who gave me my first dog. 

And then...

I remember that same man who destroyed my favorite doll.  Who starved me for doing wrong.  Who brutally raped me.  Who tore up my favorite books.  Who killed my beloved dog.

And then I am conflicted.  And I hurt.

*Sigh*

It has been a collective *sigh* kind of week for me.  And a collective upheaval.

I am still terribly conflicted over this impending death and I still do not have it sorted out.  I have taken this weekend for myself; to feel how I need to feel. 

It is a slow going process.

So while I have not been writing here; I have lots to say.  I am truly grateful for the thoughts that all my readers have shared and I am hopeful to be back in the next day or so to respond and share more of where I am at.

Thank you.

Orphan

It is funny how I just wrote about perfection and then I turn around and I'm getting smacked in the face with the unexpected, the uncontrollable, and a definite lack of perfection in my life.  And this is the shit I couldn't control even if I wanted to.

I am back on the mental roller coaster of sorts; blindfolded and going backwards while refusing to throw my hands in the air because this is just not fun at all.  I cannot write in great details right now but I will say that it appears that something has happened to my father.  So sans the details, which are gory, I can write about how I feel.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't unsettled.  I am.  In a big way.  My head is full of screaming chatter and not one bit of that chatter agrees with the next refrain of chatter.  I have always been conflicted over him and this is no different.  There are those who love him and proclaim his innocence.  There are those who hate him and wish this to be true.  And there are plenty more who are just terrified about the situation all together.

As for me, I want it to be true.  I want to be free of him and never have his thoughts cross my mind again.  When I think, I feel very little.  A lump of shame I suppose, because this is my father and I should not wish these things on anyone.  And then a single frame of my own torture is smashed into the back of my eyes and I feel an overwhelming helplessness and pain.  It appears that he finally got a taste of what he inflicted for so many years and I am at an emotional loss.

If this is true then I am an orphan.  In legal terms I would be the sole survivor. 

Survivor. 

In the singular.

Game over.

I have watched my family fight its demons to the collective death.

I am the last one standing.

Did I win?

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.