#119 Why Is It So Hard?

All I did was try to attend a flu clinic and now I am overwhelmed with anxiety.
I went to the office at 2:15pm but there were too many people! I read my book and went back at 3:30...too many people! I sat downstairs for twenty minutes and tried one more time. I didn't look at the adults and children waiting in the hall and got as far as putting my hand on the door. The reception room was full with kids all over the floor. Now the panic came in waves. I couldn't breathe. My heart was pounding so hard I thought they could hear it inside. I ran.
I cried all the way home. I hate this. It is so ridiculous. This is one of those days when I cannot stand to be seen. I cannot walk through a group of people with nothing to do but stare at me. Kids are the worst. I become upset around them, I think, because they are so unpredictable.

How I would love to hurt myself right now; just to calm myself down and help me forget. Why is everything so hard?

#118 Man of the House

“Be strong...
look after your Mother and Sister.”
i nod agreeably.
This Doctor,
who has come to the house
to declare my Father dead,
hands me a pill...
and appoints me,
the youngest,
head of this fragmented Family.

i take the job
because
the shining centre,
my older brother,
has been murdered by a drunk driver
just six months ago.

The Sun was gone
and now my Dad is gone too.

Through those dark winter months
i watched cancer
dig this second hole
in our wretched, despairing, despondent Family.

“Off to church we go,
God will help you cope
when I am gone.”
But He didn’t Dad,
because i didn’t know how to ask.

So,
here am i...the
ill-equipped replacement.
“Bring home the bacon,
dress the part,
take care of everyone!”
Where are my blue tights and cape?

Reeling from this double disaster,
i keep trying to conquer my fear,
to outrun sickness and accident
that can come in the night
and take another one of us.

Trying to keep everyone safe
didn’t leave time
for growing up.
i became the Man of the House
when i was just a scared little girl.

#117 "I Hate You!"

What is the worst thing that I can think?
What is the worst thing that I can feel?
What is the very worst thing that I can say?

"I Hate You! I Hate You! I Hate You!"

It feels powerful!

She thinks she has all the power.
She has the power to humiliate, to thrash, to reject, to leave me.

But here are words that take some of that power.
Scary words. Hurtful words. Powerful words.

"I Hate You! I Hate You! I Hate You!"
I feel a little stronger.
I can endure another day.
I will survive!

#116 OutRunning Anxiety.

#115 What Should I Do?

when
my frustration
is as high
as it is today,
I want to
cry, scream,
throw something,
tell someone off,
hit something,
hurt someone,
commit mayhem,
commit myself.

#114 Self-Injury

'self-injure' , also called self harm, self-mutilation, is defined as any intentional injury to one's own body.

People assume that I injure myself to get their attention. Who would be that crazy? By the time I have hurt myself, I no longer care what people think. Thankfully they are no longer on my radar. If I have gone to the edge of the world and come back alive, only because I have cut or burned myself, then it doesn't matter how crazy people think I am.
I am alive!
I have survived a firestorm once again!

I can't say when I first discovered that physical pain douses the fire in my brain and makes me feel calm and safe again, but I suspect that I was a pretty small child.
Because there is no logic to it and most adults are afraid to cut or burn themselves, few understand that it actually takes away the panic. Immediately after I get the rush of physical pain, I am filled with a peace and calmness that has been absent for days or weeks. I am aware of the pain but, nonetheless, the relief is amazing. I am happy to feel in control of something again
Those who judge me crazy cannot appreciate the fact that, for some of us, self-injury can be a matter of survival.
A few hours or days into recovery I am flooded with shame.
I am embarrassed to be alive.

#113 Diss-O-ciation

'diss-O-ssociate' means to become separate from, detached or disconnected. In this case, I am talking about a 'going away from myself''. Trying to describe it is like trying to describe a vacuum...emptiness.
At the point where my emotions have taken over my existence, I must leave. My safe place is dissociation. I drift away until I am out of sight and sound of my own anxiety and anger. Out there in space, I find peace, for hours or days on end.
The problem begins when some part of me wants or needs to come back but I cannot make it happen.
"I must get back, people are getting mad at my absence; think, how did I get here; surely I can get back the same way, if only I could remember how I got here." I blink my eyes to get them focused; I concentrate on understanding what people are saying.
It isn't working! I'm scared."
I leave myself again!

#112 Fragile Self Esteem

My fragile self esteem lets me down again.

#111 It's Not OK to Feel This Way

I have always imagined that other people can see into my head and know what I am thinking, and more important, what I am feeling. I guess I figured out when I was a little kid, that my mother knew when I was mad and that I would be punished for it. Eventually I came to believe that others knew when I was having inappropriate feelings and I had better find some way to make the feelings go away.
Thus was born the one who beats up on me.
She began by calling me "stupid, stuPID, STUPID!" Later, other name-calling and lecturing, and finally, physical abuse!
Now someone tells me, after all these years, that I can feel whatever I feel. "It's everyone's right to feel however they feel about anything," seems to miss the point of all this. It isn't about what normal people are allowed to do. Normal people don't have feelings like I do, by definition, if I feel it... it is bad!
When I am angry or jealous or afraid or sad, I think I am being childish. The child-in-me is misbehaving and must be stopped. She must be stopped before anyone finds out. I will use whatever I can think up: reasoning, name-calling, shaming, burning, cutting. Whatever!

#110 Hurtling off a Cliff

Once more
I find myself hurtling off a cliff.
Even though
it is familiar territory
it is terrifying.
Even though
I know I am projecting myself
into a future rife with catastrophes
that may never even happen.
I cannot help myself.
I am already there
I know for certain
that I will not survive.

but
I am here also,
in the present,
and nothing bad has happened...
yet
I want to believe that
something will intervene
but I cannot.
I hope that
someone will be there to help me
but I do not.
I try to remember that
I have been here before
and lived,
but it is no use.

I know
exactly how it will play out
and
I am scared one minute
and angry the next.
It isn't fair.
I cannot go through this again.

But
once again,
the panic swallows me up
and hurtles me off the cliff...

There is
no landing in sight.

#109 A Prayer for Today

O God,
right now I am feeling anxious and afraid.
These challenges are too daunting.
I don't know quite what to do next.
I ask for the help to calm down,
to do my best,
with you beside me and within me.

Keep me in the hollow of your hand.
When I am tossed to and fro
with the winds of adversity,
and the blasts of sickness and misunderstanding;
still my racing heart,
quiet my troubled mind.

Almighty God,
you know our needs before we ask
and our ignorance in asking;
have compassion on our weakness,
and give us those things
which, for our unworthiness,
we dare not,
and for our blindness,
we cannot ask.

this day and always,
Amen.

#108 Belted

#107 Molten Rage

#106 Unable to Speak

Sometime, early on, I became afraid to speak my feelings. I don't know when it started but I found that it was the safest way to survive in that household. I kept silent while another member of the family screamed, night after night. They refused to hear her, so I could not understand what she was trying to accomplish. She wanted her feelings heard, I guess, but she was wasting her breath.

I locked mine inside my head where they kept only me awake, night after night. Sometimes they grew terrifyingly shrill and flooded my whole body. I still couldn’t speak them but I acted them out. Waiting until I was alone, I would create pain...pain that would instantly drain away the terror...bringing peace to my mind and body.

Seeing the bruises, burns and cuts reassured me that I made the right decision and I was safe for the time being.

#105 My First Big Mistake

You know how farm kids are discouraged from naming the animals so they won't grow attached to them...
and you know how we don't give names to our bad feelings in hope that they will just go away without disrupting our lives...
and you know how it is better not to name our mistakes...

Well, I was that mistake.

My parents had two daughters and then a son; the next year a stillborn son; and then another pregnancy...a replacement for the lost boy.

With months to go, I was named, Wayne Frank.
When the big day arrived, what should appear. Me! A Girl! I was a GIRL!
It was not what they ordered. It was not what they wanted. It was a colossal mistake.

Frequently, throughout my childhood, I would be reminded of this really, really serious error that I made on my very first day of life.
I was NOT-A-BOY.

So I was nameless for 10 days; no likelihood of attachment there; maybe it will just fade away if we ignore it; maybe if we don't name this mistake, it isn't ours.
One day my father met a little girl and asked her name. The borrowed name became mine...Rylee, the mistake.