#140 Paranoia?

Will it ever stop? 
Over and over.
"She doesn't like me because...."
"He is going to leave me because...."
I search daily,
to discover the reason
why they are going to dump me.
I will need time to prepare,
I will need time to brace myself
for the inevitable.
Soon,
I will be all alone again!

#139 The Floating Head

(If I had OWNED my body, I would have climbed trees and played baseball; I would have worn nice clothes and learned to dance. I would have taken care of my body instead of neglecting and injuring it. Maybe I would have had pleasure, found love and joy, if only I had OWNED my body.) Rylee

#138 The Same-Body

This is the SAME body
 it bears all the SCARS and the SCARES

The very same body
that was bruised and blistered

It is the very same body
that was poked and prodded by others

It is the same body
that suffered indignities and humiliations

It carries me from place to place,
performs tasks and creates art

But it doesn’t feel like it belongs to me
because
I refused to belong to it.

# 137 There-but-Not-There

   I show up at at social events, classroom situations, ceremonies every time that I am expected. I am there, but not there. I am harmless. I am no threat.
I don't join-in much although I am good at cleaning up afterwards.  I tell funny stories, contribute money, I don't make waves.
   I show up every time because I don't want to be conspicuous by my absence; the whole idea is that I remain inconspicuous; invisible even.
   I show up every time because if I don't I will be truly disappeared. I will be wiped from their consciousness. I will have never existed   again,
   Invisibility is my default mode because my mother indoctrinated me very early in my childhhood that: I am not as good as everyone else!
   I am ashamed of this truth so I try to make it so that no one gets to know me very well so they won't find out.
   In trying not-to-be-seen  as  not-as-good-as-them,  I have settled for
 not-being-seen-at-all.
   (Invisible by default - as a way to hide in plain sight so as not to be humiliated for being not good enough).

#136 A New Way?

    It has always been difficult for me to recognize and describe my feelings.  Now I am getting better at it.
   I have spent much of my life on automatic pilot, operating by remote control from somewhere up on the ceiling.  Now I am doing less of this.
   This mode-of-being has served me well as a survival mechanism. Now I am visiting my body more.
   Up until now, the main point of contact for me and my body, has revolved around physical pain; accidental, pathological or self-inflicted pain.
   If I am returning to my consciousness, I must be returning to my body; and if I am returning to my body, am I returning to consciousness???
   Unfortunately,  I am re-experiencing the pain and panic of my past.
   As a child, my natural defense was to stiffen against the pain inflicted on my body by others. Now I don't know how to defend against the pain I am re-discovering.
  

#135 BOOM!!!

Everything is overwhelming me.
I am too scared and too frustrated and too angry
and too confused to think straight. 
My head may explode. 
Soon there will be a spark that sends me over the edge.
To other people the trigger will seem trivial
but it will send me into panic or rage.
But if I hurt myself, I will feel calm once more.
Self-injury is the quickest way to regain control.

#134 My curse!

My curse is that I cannot forget!

I remember the hurtful things that people say
and all the unintentionally painful things
that people have said to me
FOREVER.

Even as I get older
and I cannot find my keyes
and I struggle to spell ordinary words,
my memory drags up
out of the depths of my mind
what someone said
or how they looked at me months or years ago.

Is it that
what was said is less important
than how it made me feel at the time?
Was I embarrassed?
Was I hurt?
Was I angry?

Is it possible
that my mind could have forgotten the words or looks
had my body not remembered the feelings?
So my memory retains the specifics:
the who. what, when, where
and forever wonders why?

Out of the Borderline Forest
comes this one punishing personality trait...

I cannot forget past injuries!

#133 FOREVER

There have been moments in my life that have become instantly sealed into concrete cells within my body. They crush everything around them.

I was scared, ashamed, abandoned, angry, selfish, or bullied. These feelings solidifed inside myself and apparently, they are forever.

#132 Blame Lifted.

#Fire Science 101

When a forest fire is raging, the experienced fire fighter lights a small, controlled fire directly in the path of the out of control blaze. This fire uses up the oxygen available to fuel the big one.

When I was a kid I was always worried about my Dad. He went away to the hospital 28 times in 4 years. Each time I was terrified that he would not come home again. Sensing the extreme tension in the house didn’t prevent me from getting on my mother’s nerves. The raging forest fire was the real possibility that my father might die and I, the carbon copy of him, would not survive that. He, who I loved above all else, was in constant danger and therefore so was I. A four year old can not figure out how to fix this.
So I lit small fires and my mother raged. The small things that I did to make her angry sucked all the energy from the forest fire of losing my Dad. When the small fire was extinguished, my mother and I both found some peace. My mother needed time to collect herself and my body needed time to heal. The pain was a distraction from the forest fire still baring down on us. The small diversion did not make my Dad OK but it re-directed the enormous energy needed to deal with the chronic fear. As an adult, self-injury would quite literally provide me with small burns to provide me respite.