If I have a type at all it is asshole. I like blustery, aggressive, often sociopathic men. And then god damnit they had better melt for me. And it works. But I don’t go for the traditional bad boy. I like geeks. I like the smart kid grown up into the bully role.
Right now I am exploding. I am doing so all over the internet. I have now sent extensive messages to everyone I know in my extended biological family telling them I was horribly molested and raped for 10 years and none of them did anything to help me. I have mixed feelings about this.
My brother said that our father absolutely encouraged him to rape me.
That’s what I call it when I go behind closed doors and don’t really respond to requests. I’ve already done once since becoming a parent and I kind of expect it to continue. I’ve been through these kinds of super intense freak outs before. I did a few while I was dating Tom. And I wrote about them then. I need to go read my archive again.
Everything is all jumbled up right now. I’m sad about my uncle dying. I’m sad that I didn’t know it was time to say goodbye because no one thought to tell me. I’m sad that my mother used his death as a chance to ambush me so that she could try to get her own needs met. I’m proud that when my mother called me I told her she needs to go to therapy and say out loud many times that she sent me to my father so he could rape me. She did that. She has to say out loud, “I sent my daughter to her father so that her father could rape her.” She has to say that. If she doesn’t say that, there is nothing. Ever again. I cannot acknowledge that she is alive. Until the day my mother can say, “I allowed my daughter to be raped” I have nothing to say to her. It is her fucking fault.
I called my mother in the middle of a horrific sexual assault and begged her to come get me and she told me no. She bears the burden of that guilt. I want to punch her in the face. I want to run her over with my car. That fucking horrible disgusting repulsive excuse for a mother. I think she should be dead. I hate her so much. My mother sent me to my father over and over. The custody agreement said he should NEVER BE ALONE WITH ME. And I was. Repeatedly.
My brother told me that our father didn’t explicitly say it but he made it very clear it was perfectly ok for my brothers to have sex with me if they wanted regardless of whether I wanted it or not. Let me say that another way. My father told my brothers that it was ok to rape me. My brother told me that it was very understood in the household that if my mother wasn’t up for sex my dad would fuck my sister. If my sister wasn’t up for sex… guess who that leaves. Me. I was three years old when my parents divorced.
What the fuck happened to me. I can’t remember it very clearly. I was too little. There is court documentation of my fathers confession. The detective on my case told me that my father confessed to far more than I remember and he was horrified by what my father said. Let me say that again, a professional police detective who works on many many many abuse cases. That is his job. He was horrified by what happened to me. But I don’t remember it. It scares the shit out of me. What the hell other memories are lurking in my body and in my brain. When I am 75 years old will I wake up and say, “72 years ago my father raped me and I’m not over it.”
I am so fucking pissed off at my mother. She wants to deny that it happened. She doesn’t want to admit her guilt. It is her fault. She was my mother. Her whole job was to ensure that I reached adulthood in relative safety and she failed.failed.failed. I get to be angry about that. I get to take her to task for that and no one gets to intervene. No one, including my co-dependent, enabler, abusive sister, get to tell me that I have to change how I feel about my piece of shit mother.
Abusive. My mother told me that if she hadn’t been Catholic she would have aborted me. My sister told me that my mother was packed and ready to leave my father when my mom turned up pregnant with me. There was always the very clear implication that it is therefore my fault that my sister was raped for three more years.
Maybe that is why that stupid, worthless piece of shit never said anything about my mom sending me off to my father’s for the weekend. Maybe she just thought it was my turn.
From The Courage to Heal page 44:
“Write about the ways you’re still affected by the abuse. What are you still carrying in terms of your feelings of self-worth, your work, your relationships, your sexuality? How is your life still pained, still limited?
Write about the strengths you’ve developed because of the abuse. Think what it’s taken for you to survive. What are the qualities that enabled you to make it? Perseverance? Flexibility? Self-sufficiency? Write about your strengths with pride.”
Well right this minute I am hiding in my garage alone in the house. Noah took the kids off to a fun sounding party and I was not up for it at all. I feel incredible anxiety about going there. I feel like I could probably handle being around people who are already close to me but the circle has to be insanely close to me. I don’t trust that people aren’t going to hurt me or the kids. I am not able to connect with new people at all. I cannot assess current threat. That’s really the problem. I feel like I am being revictimized pretty much all the time right now. I feel like I am living inside my nightmare. And I’m trying to recognize that it is right now. This came hard and fast. This is not always. This is not usual. This is not my whole life.
I am not this broken person hiding in the garage. But I am. This is awful. Right now I am full of hate. Hate hate hate hate hate. I can hate everyone. That is one of the big ways I am still affected by the abuse. I am afraid to learn more about magic. I am afraid of being a neophyte in public. I am afraid that if I take agency and change things that everything will go to shit.
What strengths do I have? Well, there isn’t a whole lot in the world that scares me. It’s kind of funny, actually. My father held a gun to my head when I was 9 years old. He forced me to suck his cock. What in the hell else is likely to go wrong in modern America that will rivel that? Acts of nature? Bah. Acts of terrorism, well if you must. Do I deserve to live? Yes, mother fucker, I deserve to live.
I deserve to live and you don’t. I am glad you are dead you piece of shit. And I hope my mom grows a set and offs herself soon. Because then I will be over this god damn sword of Damocles. I am ready to move on with my life.
Oh stages of grief, how I know you well. I want to rush through you. Can I fake it till I make it?
And the most important reason I am doing well and my mother is not? I tell the truth.
Edited to add: this post is about to hit 6,000 views. If you are looking for pornography, please keep looking. Heck, you can even look around this blog. I write pornography sometimes. This post is not about pornography. This is my life. I was a brutalized child. Please don’t beat off thinking about my father raping me. I don’t mind in the slightest if you kind of imagine that kind of thing in abstract, please have enough respect not to use my actual trauma.
If you are a rape survivor there are much better posts here for you than this one. This one just makes you sad.
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Oh fuck. I remember. I remember how it happened. After he gave me the milkshake that tasted funny, I’m sure it was spiked, and after he took me to bed and made me sleep naked and fingered me and after I got up to throw up in the bathroom…
I remember and I wish I didn’t. He came to get me. He asked me why I was sniveling in the bathroom. I told him I had been sick. He made me clean up. Then he told me I needed to apologize for making a mess. He walked over and sat down on the couch. He sat down and then I noticed a gun in his hand. He set it down pretty obviously on the seat next to him. He told me to crawl to him. I did. He told me to apologize while I was sucking his cock. And I did.
And I’m not allowed to feel anything about this memory right now.
But now I am because it is 2:30 am and I just sent Noah to bed. I forced him to hammer out with me what memory was surfacing right now, why is it triggering me so hard, and how can I get through it a bit faster, damnit. I am now re-reading The Courage to Heal and mocking myself for how very classic my pattern is. Yes this is a spiral, and yes I am in recovery, Chris. I am the survivor of incest. Tonight I said out loud to my husband that my father raped me. I am pretty sure that is the very first time in my life I have ever said that out loud. And oh my fucking god now I feel about it.
This feels overwhelming and horrifying and awful. I am drowning. This hurts so much. My father held a gun to my head and told me to suck his cock. And I was supposed to get up the next day and go to the amusement park with him. I asked him to take me home instead because I was sick from the alcohol poisoning he had given me. I couldn’t tell him that. And that is why my stomach hurts so bad if I have much alcohol. The sensation scares the ever loving shit out of me. When I was 18 years old I was given a date rape drug by someone I was out to have a one night stand with. I intended to have sex with him anyway but I doubt he knew that. I sincerely doubt he knew I was a sure thing. I’m pretty sure he thought I was the normal sort of stupid 18 year old who invites a guy up to a drinking party in a secluded mountain house and intends to say no. You know, one of those stupid women who have never been repeatedly raped from toddlerhood.
Right. You can see the problem there. And you can see how I can get away from this feeling. There are a lot of fucking valid reasons I want to derail from going where my head is heading right now. That’s a god damn terrifying place to be. I am trying to talk myself into releasing into the horrible body memories of my father raping me. And maybe I will have to pause and I will have to tell Puff about it. Maybe if I quiet my fingers I can find my voice.
Oh my fucking god. My mother told me that she breastfed me longer than any of her other children because, “It was the only way to keep them off of me.” I think she means my father. I think my father started actually raping my sister after I was born and that is why she resents me so much. But that’s a story I’m making up and I have no reason to think it is true. That’s trying to explain her actions with motives that make her actions justified. No. No. No. I am not to blame for my father molesting my sister. It is not my fault that my mother stayed as long as she did. Women in domestic violence situations often have to try leaving several times before they manage to get out. Even once they get out there is a ridiculous legacy of guilt and shame to deal with around allowing your FUCKING HUSBAND TO RAPE YOUR DAUGHTERS YOU PIECE OF SHIT CUNT. I don’t have to be diplomatic here about my mother. I don’t need to find a way to excuse the fact that she is the most disgusting, pathetic, worthless example of mothering I have ever fucking seen and I think that if she dies in a lot of pain it is exactly what she fucking deserves.
I called her on the fucking phone and begged her to come pick me up. She told me that I made my bed so now I have to lie in it. That was a consistent theme, sadly. I was often left with my father in a way that was phrased as me deserving him because I was a little kid and I asked to see my daddy. When I asked to see him she dropped me on his lap and said, “Fine! You want the bastard! Fuck you then you little bitch!” No really. My mother said that to me, verbatim. That was how she sent me to my father’s house. And then he molested me. And I called her and asked her to intervene because I was a god damn outrageously precocious child and I knew that what was happening to me was wrong and my mother told me that I made my bed now I have to lie in it.
Then my father raped me. And then he wanted me to get in the car the next day and go to the amusement park with him so he could show the world what a good dad he was. I’ve told the story about him insisting on me wearing short dresses with zippers so he could molest me in public, right? Yeah. And on the car ride home he screamed at me for being an ungrateful, pathetic, useless bitch because he already had the theme park tickets and he fucking wanted to go and now I’ve ruined everything and it is all my fault for being such a horrible, selfish, stupid bitch.
That is my story. That is the tape I hear in my head. I want to start listing off when… but I’ll only list the times that make my story seem better. But it’s totally fucking random. Sometimes it’s at times when it’s convenient and sometimes it is a nightmare. To continue setting the stage, it is now 3:00am. I took ~5 minutes off to visit the restroom, find carrots for mindless eating that will allow me to focus without contributing to my negative self esteem issues, lots of water, and I’m now out of excuses for not going down the rabbit hole. I’m sitting in my little corner under the cave next to the flowers. It’s not ready yet… but I’ll post a picture tomorrow. I hadn’t even realized what I was building until I typed it in this paragraph right now. I have a pretty sledgehammer like subconscious, don’t you think?
Oh my god. Why is that the first thing I say when I think of my father raping me. Why do I cry out to god to save me? Am I searching for that higher power? My therapist clearly thinks so and she’s pushing me loudly towards Wicca. (I saw what you did there, Sharon.) Which is a very clear choice. I was systematically told throughout my childhood that I was evil and bad by every one around me and I didn’t realize how blatant it was until Noah listed it off tonight. I don’t realize it until people express shock and horror that I don’t just know that my childhood was off the charts brutal.
My father gave me an alcoholic milkshake then penetrated me vaginally while rubbing himself vigorously against me. And right now I have the most overwhelming urge to masturbate it isn’t funny. I feel like I cannot continue telling this story because I have to go masturbate because it is so fucking hot that he did that to me.
That is why I am a disgusting piece of shit. That is why Femme Car does her stuff. Ha. Enh, Or maybe that’s me projecting my story onto other people I don’t know. That’s the annoying part of this introspection stuff. I am realizing that I don’t even know my friends. Most of the people I have been bonding with lately are big, physically intimidating men who were themselves hurt as children. I am solely interacting with people who identify as survivors. I am testing people out, slowly, one by one, seeing if they understand my language. Because only other survivors know what I’m talking about. And I’m text book. And that bothers me.
I feel offended by the fact that I am a text book incest survivor. God damnit don’t I think I am more special than that? Oh shit now I’m trying to get nasty with myself rather than feel this. See how this goes?
I’m going round and round in circles because I don’t know if I am actually breaking cycles or if I just moved them somewhere else. I’m desperately looking for proof that I am not like my family. I have to trot out these long list of examples of horrible exchanges. They aren’t horrible (uhm, mostly) in and of themselves if any of them had been one thing in my entire childhood. But it’s kind of a … wait. What the fuck am I saying. No. They were god damn horrible. I was heinously abused. I was horrifically, over the top, ridiculously abused. I was blamed for events that happened before my fucking birth. I have confirmation of this from my brother. He said it once, I can never ask him for that validation again. Now I have to just go on with my life believing my side of the story.
But first I have to hate my mother for a while and that’s hard. I love my mother a lot. I desperately wish that I got to be in a relationship with her right now. I want support desperately. No, let me rephrase this. Right now I am in a period of intense stress. Culturally I was brought up to believe that when you are in periods of intense stress and you need to ask for help you should first ask your family. Only my family would respond to my response for help by bringing the Titanic over and dropping it around my neck. And saying it that way makes it sound like I don’t care about their suffering, and I do. But nothing I do can fix their suffering and standing near them will allow them to hurt my children. So they can fuck off and die.
Earlier this week I was losing it with the kids. I was not in control of my emotions anymore. As the book calls it, I was in the emergency phase and I needed to call in as much help and childcare as I could. And I did. Before I picked up the book even, go me. And by losing it with the kids I mean that I got a bit ranty when Shanna was standing in the door way screaming at me because she wanted me to stop working but I was trying to paint. You can see how the conflict of needs here could feel intense. Maybe. Or maybe you think I am fucking nuts. But you are going to be in one of three camps. Either you will understand because you have also seen something hard and you have that monster somewhere inside of you and you are afraid of it, or you do not understand and you think that having that kind of monster inside of me makes *me* a monster, or you are a fairly empathetic person and you extrapolate from your own childhood (which was whatever it was) and you then react to how extreme my life was compared to your own life. I think most people are in the third category.
And that means that no matter what, forever, my discussion of my abuse has to be a private journey. Because it doesn’t matter where someone is in that trifecta of approaches, they can’t help me. Only I can. And my mom and my sister have to help themselves. And this is the 12 step talk stuff that I pick up in the water living in California. It’s just here. People talk about them as if they are things that everybody just knows. What does it say about me and my friends and my life that absolutely all of them know the 12 step language? All of us are in abuse cycles.
And I’m getting off topic and I’m getting tired. But this is something. This is a start. My father raped me. I don’t seem to be ready to feel it yet, but I will get there. And I feel in this moment like I have no choice but to recover the body memory of that. Why do I feel like I must go through intense personal discomfort (I was planning to stay up ALL NIGHT) in order to force myself into a weak enough physical state where I could no longer fight off the terror of feeling abused. My throat closed while I was typing.
And I had to pause right there to go check facebook and see for myself that the person who said he would come back and help me paint tomorrow responded and yes he really will be coming back. And the friend whose birthday party I am skipping said she understands. And I believe her. I don’t think she is lying and secretly fuming. I think she is probably sad for me that I am in a place where I am hurting like this. Why do I want to think she is mad at me? Because I want to start the cycle where I am begging people for reassurance. I feel like it is ok for me to ask for small amounts of reassurance constantly from the people I live with (We say “I love you!” multiple times a day and that counts), but not big displays. I need to keep that to a minimum. I seem to feel like it is ok for me to ask for help from the community in a big open way where anyone who wants to come shows up and does whatever kind of help they kind of halfheartedly get done because I feel bad directing them. I feel like I shouldn’t be bossy.
I get to the point of having panic attacks when I think about directing people right now. Dude. I taught high school. If anyone can direct large groups of people it’s me. Only I can’t. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I am sitting at home feeling upset that my friends are out at a dance event, or rather just getting home, and I’m sitting here obsessively writing on the internet about how broken I am. My father raped me. Not saying that out loud is ruining my life. I guess I need to start saying it then. After I go to sleep.
I set myself a rather ambitious schedule for house renovating. It was going to be very difficult for me to accomplish. I would have to keep up my energy and motivation through quite a bit more hard work. Right now I can’t do it. At this point I feel like the schedule was going to not be met anyway, or if it did… barely. With my uncle dying there is no way. I am spacy and unfocused. I am crying. I have no more patience left. I am on edge and brittle. I have to stop the big work.
Which is to say I need to finish puttering in the garage organizing stuff. But that’s not stuff that other people help with very well. 🙂 So I am going to get everything into the garage, install a grown up level lock on the door so Shanna can’t get into trouble, and I’m going to get it done slowly before my birthday. As much as I wanted to get this done so I could put pictures up and feel proud of myself… I’m not there. And I’m not going to be able to get there for a while. I’m having too hard of a time functioning.
I need to spend time with Shanna doing Shanna stuff for a while. I need to get her off the movies that turn her into a serious brat. Oh I cannot stand her behavior when she is watching a lot of movies. I need to get the sugar that I have been binging on out of the house. I was very deliberately using sugar and caffeine to fuel my ability to keep working. But my body feels like shit. Shanna is whinging and demanding sugar all day long. It needs to get out of my house again.
I need to come back to the center of what my life is right now. What am I actually doing at this stage of my life? I am raising my babies. I am trying to create a space where they have freedom to play without getting yelled at. I’ve been missing the mark on that one lately. I want to put a lock on the garage because I want her to be able to have a “yes” environment most of the time but then there is an adult space in the house where we can go to practice civilized behavior when I am up for it.
Right now I just can’t direct any more people. It takes energy, both physical and mental, that I don’t have. It is amazing to me that as wonderful as it is to have people come help, I still have a lot of work to do when they are here. And all of a sudden I can’t do it. Even though I wanted to. I’m so sorry I canceled on people.
I have been working like mad for months. I’m tired. I’m worn out.
This is blitz week, so all of my energy has been going towards trying to get house stuff done as quick as humanly possible. It’s been rather stressful. And then today, my uncle died. My uncle raised me. I was very close to him until my niece was born and I became not-the-favorite and I was just never very important again. My family took great pains to remind me today when I went to the hospital to say goodbye. I didn’t arrive until after he died because no one felt they needed to tell me they were taking him off life support. All of a sudden I have grave doubts about whether I will finish this project this week like I wanted.
1. When you talk about him like that in public it makes you look bad. It doesn’t matter what he did. He’s not humiliating you in public. There was no violence or abuse. Why are you acting like that?
2. I don’t know how to apologize sufficiently for what I did to you. I hurt you. I’m not sure how to get passed it.
3. If you continue to let him be mean to you like that I may have to kick you both.
4. Every day I am glad for you. I’m pretty sure you don’t know that. Telling you might be a problem.
5. I’m glad you decided to like me. My life would be very sad without you.
6. I’m really glad you picked me over her. It’s not nice or mature in any way, but I’m glad that someone finally took my side.
7. If he hits you, I am calling the police. You don’t get to make the decision that it’s ok for your children to watch that. Please get help before this escalates.
8. I’m not sure I want you any more. But I’ve wanted you for a long time. I’m kind of afraid I’ll be disappointed.
9. You cannot know how much I struggle with wanting to hit you. Doing so would be weakness on my part. You deserve better than that.
10. I don’t believe what you said about me.
Things I will say: the next person who makes fun of me asking why I’m not done with the house stuff yet I may not speak to ever again. I am so tired and so frustrated right now.
Last night we went out on a date, thanks to Paula and Andrew. After Shanna was born I pretty much lost the ability to orgasm. It was really really terrible. Nearly traumatizing. I discovered last night that you get me into the right scene and it’s back!
I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN
I’d rather get laid, well, all night long than have a stoopid mothers day breakfast. 😉
I was outside working in the yard and my neighbor started talking to me. He has been coaching softball for one of the local high schools for years. This year, for the first time, he is coaching the JV girls team. He’s struggling with the emotions and the drama. He was ready to quit. I asked him how he would feel if it was his kid having trouble with a coach. Would he want them to quit or would he want them to work it out? I also told him that these girls desperately need men like him and he is doing a great service to the world if he helps them become stronger and more confident in listening to difficult to hear feedback.
He said he won’t quit and he’s glad he talked to me. Today is a good day.
I’m doing the high intensity version of parenting. I am on duty as an active parent for at least 22 hours a day, 7 days a week. By which I mean, I have to accept the fact that any and every single thing in my life may have to be stopped or interrupted if one of my children need something from me. And they need a lot from me. And there are two of them. Woof. In the average week we socialize with a maximum of five people and that’s often two sets of mother/child dyads seen separately or adults who come over at dinner time to mostly socialize after the kids are asleep. My kids are not now nor have they ever been in any kind of daycare or school. My primary use of babysitting is so I can go to therapy.
This is the high intensity version of parenting. And I’ll tell you honestly that I question it. There is a lot I love madly about my life but there is a lot that I wonder if I am really making the right choices. I’m not sure there is a way to know. You cast the dice and take your chances, right?
I’m just starting to get back into masturbating. The only person I am thinking about (because there is always a person) is Noah. Monogamy is kind of weird.
As of Saturday morning things were not so hot with my dear friend. However, on Saturday evening I got a phone call from that friend. He called me to tell me was sorry for the ways in which he was derailing the conversation. The stuff I was talking about made him think about very uncomfortable things from his own life and he couldn’t handle it and he wanted me to stop talking. He admitted the whole thing top to bottom. I laughed and I cried. I thanked him for trusting me enough to be honest with me completely and totally for the first time in our friendship. Then I bossed him around (see how that works) and I told him to come back over.
Noah, my friend and I sat around and talked about broken dynamics. We talked about where we are reacting to old baggage and where we have created new stuff together. We talked about the parts of our dynamic that are good and healthy for us and we talked about the parts that are not healthy for us. Then we tried to figure out how we can get more of the good and less of the bad because we are ready to grow up. We are ready to stop hurting the people we love so much.
And I can’t get very detailed because an awful lot of what we talked about isn’t my story.
And Sunday we had brunch with another very long time friend. I like to call him the California Mindfucker because he is very interested in getting into peoples brains and playing with the goo. Not to mention that he was one of my first lovers/play partners in the bdsm scene and he has done a fair bit of fucking with my brain. But the ways he does it are so screamingly over the top weird California new-agey feeling. I love it. Of course we did more spelunking into brains but this time, for the first time ever, I paid attention to his story. That feels horrible to admit. I feel like I should not be the one who “takes” in a given interaction. But I often am, and that feels bad.
But oh man. Since I have started consciously trying to ask for and accept more help I have seen a dramatic increase in the intensity of my friendships in a really wonderful way. I am allowing people to do things for me I’ve never allowed them to do before. I didn’t realize how lonely I have been my entire life. No wonder I pursue sex with such vigor. It’s the only time I let myself have a close, mutual relationship. I don’t let anyone I am not currently fucking do anything for me and I make those people go through hell before I let them do stuff for me. Instead I set myself up as the victim/martyr with all the need.
Interesting. Enh, sorta. Ok that’s hyperbole too. But that’s my story about myself sometimes. Anyhow, at this point I am trying to change up how I relate to people I love the most. It’s an interesting process because almost all of the people I love the most have some fairly major issues. That’s the whole “prickly and difficult” thing. In order for us to get to a place where we know how to be more respectful of one another I have to start to look at my friends more. I have to actually see them in a way I have never looked at them before. I need to figure out where my defensive mechanisms are and actively try to change them.
I’m not really going to be able to go where I originally thought I was going with this post. I got derailed by a wonderful, awesome person. I got to go talk to an old friend and tell her about the highs and lows of our relationship and she gave me feedback on her perspective of them so I could figure out where I end and she begins. And she tolerated a lot of babbling. It was nice. She has been my friend for so very long.
I’m starting to realize that anyone who is in my life at this point is fucking serious about loving me or they wouldn’t be in my life. It takes intense effort and tolerance to be my friend. And lots of people do it. No really, lots of people. I am putting out feelers for my birthday party and fixing my house and people are showing up. Not hundreds, but lots. Lots and lots. More than I imagined. I am really lucky. I am really blessed. I want to figure out where I end and they begin. I want to see them more clearly. I want to stop seeing ghosts.
I choose life.
I’m stuck in one place while Calli takes a nap. I was browsing around I found this blog entry. It’s about lower back pain among Adult Children of Alcoholics and it relates it to the second chakra.
Kind of interesting that I’m so focused on writing and creating a safe space in my house right now. Even more interesting is that my entire body (but mostly my lower back) seems to have to be brutalized in the process. Maybe I’m trying to give birth to myself. God knows birth hurt.
I have wanted to do a cross country road trip for years. I’m going to do it in 2012. I have so many people in my life I don’t get to see enough.
I have a thing for difficult people. I am not an easy person to be friends with and I tend to like people who are also difficult to like. Sharp people with a lot of edges and defenses. I understand them. Unfortunately there are some down sides to hanging out with folks like that.
Last night I invited a good friend over. The support group I am in is going to involve me sitting down and trying to tell my ‘whole story’ some week soon. I haven’t spoken these things out loud much. The majority of my communication about these topics has been through writing. I feel like I go mute when I want to speak of them. It is very difficult to overcome a lifetime of taboo and speak the words. I need practice doing it. The thing is, I like difficult people. People with sharp edges and defenses. It didn’t go so hot. Basically what happened is that this friend and Noah both have similar geek tendencies and in order to feel optimally comfortable they don’t step outside those patterns when they are in the same room. But uhm, those geek tendencies make it so I am completely unable to speak about my stuff.
So when things weren’t going particularly well and they were not reacting in the ways I needed I got very frustrated. And then Calli woke up and I had to go nurse. We had been sitting in the hot tub. I was hoping the dark would make it easier for me to talk. When I got out of the hot tub I realized that I was pretty much done outside anyway. I tried to communicate that I did not intend to come back and they should follow me in fairly quickly. I didn’t mean for them to do so instantly because I needed to nurse the baby anyway. But the wires got crossed. They didn’t come in for about an hour.
So I sat on the couch and rocked and felt increasingly invalidated. This isn’t exactly something I do much. I don’t even say the details out loud to Noah much when we are doing our metaconversations. No really, I am not able to physically speak about these things well. As time passed I felt increasingly unsafe and like I had made a bad decision to try. They came in and acted like little kids who broke a window and are hoping no one noticed. I flipped out. I called them names and ran to the office and sobbed. Then I got up and I went to the cupboard for a towel and I walked back into the office and I picked up the scalpel.
I don’t know what it is like for other cutters, but I love it. I love the fact that for those seconds the only thing in the world is the hot, terrible burn on my leg. I can’t think about anything else. By the time I get to cutting I am no longer capable of finding the words to talk about the monsters. I can’t. I am too much absolutely in the present. I cannot think about the past because I am unrelievedly in the present. I feel like cutting is a gift. Cutting allows me to walk away from any situation in my past and not think about it. No matter how intense my feelings are, I can make them stop. I can go completely and totally flat line. It’s not disassociating. It is forcing my body to have no space for anything other than the pain. That may sound unpleasant, but I promise you that emotional pain is harder and hurts more.
I yelled at Noah that he said… something. I don’t even remember what. Something about them wanting to hurt me. Noah’s response was, “No. We didn’t say that. And you will know it later.” I thought that was wonderful. It gave me space to think it then without trying to demand that his reality supplant mine right then. My friend apologized profusely and genuinely was upset. He is a wonderful person and he would move mountains for me. He loves me a lot. But you see, I like sharp, difficult people. And they often have a lot of defenses. He was trying to make himself feel comfortable because the things I was talking about upset him. He wanted to comfort me, but he didn’t know how.
I spend a lot of time living at that juncture. That is what living with an Aspie is like. They can stand near you and really not understand at all that you are having a whole emotional experience in front of them. I don’t know how to describe what that is like on a day to day basis. To be fair, Noah has learned my “tells” for when I am having an emotional experience at this point. Noah is quite good. It took him years and we’ve had some awful arguments. But he learned. My friend hasn’t learned my tells. And when Noah is distracted by other people he stops staring at me intently looking for tells. So they both managed to miss almost all of the signals from start to finish.
They didn’t mean to, but they did actually create a space where it was unsafe for me to talk. And they are big boys and get to put on their big boy panties and deal with feeling bad about that. And I need to put on my big girl panties and accept the fact that I set them up to fail. Talking about this stuff is hard for me. I need very specific kinds of support to do it. There is not a worse possible two person combination for creating that space amongst my entire network. Both of my boys can be wonderfully supportive and safe to talk to… one on one. When I get to dictate 100% of the terms of the conversation. Heh. But when they are standing next to one another (or sitting, whatever) they all of a sudden have to take one another into account and I feel like they are both pathologically unable to be safe for me around another alpha male geek. I’m not sure why. But they trigger the fuck out of one another. (Ok, I have suspicions as to why, but that’s not part of this story.)
Thing is… this isn’t news. At all. And I invited these two men to be the ones I tried to practice telling my story to? Awesome way to ensure that absolutely everyone is upset. That was the wrong decision. I could have invited just about anyone else. I could have invited that friend and sat with him in a separate space from Noah. I could have told them early on in the night that I need them both to take a vow of silence because if they talk over me I will be unable to speak–and they would have done it. They love me. They love me so much that they have both been through years of me being nasty and mean to them. The friend in question? Uhm, I cracked a few of his ribs years ago when I was overly rough with him. He wasn’t thrilled, but he has never ever been nasty to me because of it. (It was an accident. Really.) Naw, it is part of this story. I think this friend would have walked away from whatever else he was doing and married me if I had asked him to. He loves me. A lot. And Noah and he kind of have a low level dick contest when they are together. And they are both socially clueless all the time anyway. Yeah. I really invited the wrong combination.
Why do I do that? Why when I get to the point of wanting to spill my guts, do I need to talk about my sexual abuse in front of men who feel slightly competitive towards one another and are unwilling to be flexible when the other is present? Maybe because I don’t want to tell the story and I want reason to be upset and angry instead so I can focus my energy there. I want to be mad at my boys because they love me so much and I want to hurt them badly for committing the unforgivable sin of loving me. I want to start getting hyperbolic now because that’s the headspace I am in. I think that is the underlying reason. I think I picked them because talking about these things is horribly painful and I would rather derail onto another strong emotion than look at them. I would rather look for any reason in the world to turn around and start emotionally kicking the people who love me as hard as I can. I am quite certain my friend didn’t sleep well and he probably feels very bad for hurting me. At this point he probably is blaming himself for being a terrible friend.
Or not. Or maybe that is my story and he went home and slept great and he thinks that I am in a place where I am hurting and he is sorry that I am hurting so much and it’s not about him. I hope that is what happened. I’m not sure he has boundaries that strong, but I’ll hope for him.
And that leaves me. In the office. With a leg I can’t let my kids see for a long time. Right before our big European vacation. Awesome. It won’t blow up my life, but it is going to add a low level of stress for a long time. I am going to be freaked out about the possibility of Shanna seeing it. We are kind of a naked house. I am more of a clothes person, but when it is hot I don’t have a problem with stripping. I often work in the yard with no clothes on because I’m easier to wash off. It just seems practical. But that’s off the table for a while.
It’s really not big as far as patches go, at least not for me. I was pretty tentative last night. I haven’t used a scalpel in a long time and I was having trouble figuring out how I wanted to hold the blade. You see, as much as I may be suicidal, I am a perfectionist. I am not interested in going in deeper than I intend. I want to be very particular about going through just one layer of skin at a time. It makes it a much longer more burning process. It also requires more self control to move very slowly. That is what gives me the intense focus that severs my connection to the memories. My old therapist, Traci, was a Harm Reduction person. She didn’t think that addicts or cutters, or whatever other self destructive behavior pattern you have, necessarily needed to stop. Obviously they were filling a need. You just should be aware and careful of how you use it. Obviously it is better to find other ways of coping. But if this is what you got, you use it.
I haven’t needed to cut in a long time. Last night it didn’t feel optional. Last night I felt like I was completely unsafe and in danger of being actively hurt or reprimanded or something if I continued to feel those feelings. It was not ok to be in that part of my brain. I’m not even sure I understand entirely why. Ok, yeah… their behavior was sucking. But I know that about them. My entire relationship with both of them is predicated around me bullying them into acting how I want them to act. I’m probably not supposed to admit that out loud, but no… really. The default expectation when we are together is I decide how they are allowed to behave. I give them longer and shorter leashes depending on my mood. Really. That is pretty much the only way I can stand being around them and oh man that sounds horrible. I’m feeling terribly guilty right now. But the thing is, I’m setting boundaries. And it’s ok for me to set boundaries. The boys don’t notice when I try to set my boundaries in subtle, nuanced ways because that is not part of their language. They both really appreciate a 2×4 upside the head because otherwise they do not notice what is going on. They cannot step outside their own stuff to listen to other people unless the other person bullies them into silence.
What an interesting symbiotic relationship. To be fair, I am describing them while picturing them at the absolute worst of their combined behavior while together. Both of them are much easier to communicate with one on one and I normally only need a flyswatter and not a 2×4. Ahem.
Through the writing of this I have gone through feeling hurt, angry, sad, melancholy, amused, and at this point I’m shaking my head with resignation. My boys were my boys. The problem is, I wasn’t me. The little girl who was badly sexually abused and who was badly emotionally abused at home isn’t part of who I am on a regular basis. I am not a hesitant person. I am not withdrawn. I am engaged with the world. I am strong and assertive. I have opinions and by Gawd I’ll not hesitate to share them. But I’m also nice. I believe in justice and bullying is one of the fastest ways to make me stand up and shout someone down. My boys are bullies. Lovable bullies, but bullies. Normally I am great with that dynamic. I think it is fun and funny. It is endearing.
But my little girl doesn’t need a bully. I shouldn’t have invited that friend. That was a very hurtful thing for me to do to both of us. This is the kind of thing that is normally a stumbling block to forward progress. I know that the friend in question doesn’t know this blog exists let alone read it. So I could go forward feeling like I made my mea culpa to the world and “oh look how evolved I am for dissecting my feelings” and then I will stop trying for a while because I proved that talking about these things in person is unsafe. But the thing is, I picked someone who doesn’t know how to talk to a little girl. That’s not really his fault. He doesn’t have that life experience and he doesn’t recognize whatsoever that I’m having a massive psychological experience in front of him. He thinks I’m me. And I’m just as much of a bully as him and I love him for it and he loves me for it. We accept and like that part of one another. In respectful ways. Our dynamic has gotten much healthier over the years. I still have to set the terms for our interactions. And I didn’t last night. I’m not sure I would have been able to keep it up even if I had tried because the space where I can talk prohibits that kind of strength.
I need to talk to someone else. And that’s normally the stumbling block to progress. I need to create space in my life to talk about this more. It’s hard though. Calli is uhm, resisting weaning efforts. I think she is nursing twice as much as she was three weeks ago and I’m ready to put my head through a window. She is, in fact, in the living room with Noah fussing loudly. But I have 2 more minutes of personal time. Damnit.
I may get demonized for this, but oh well. I realized this morning that I am not interested in living in a consensual living family. Not with small children and maybe not ever. Most likely not ever. I believe that parents deserve to put boundaries up that seem completely over the top inappropriate to the kids. I am not being mean I am preserving my sanity so that I do not lose my shit and beat her some day many years hence because it is just the last @#%#@# time she is going to come in my room and destroy my belongings.
My room is off limits. Period.
SHIT! Noah’s new company is having a party today. It’s a family thing. I’m feeling more than slightly fussed because this guy I had a really hot, intense multi-stage, intermittent fling with over several years works there.
HURRY UP AND STOP BEING ALL LOOSE SKIN LIKE YOU FREAKIN POSTPARTUM BELLY SO I CAN GO FLIRT WITH GUYS AND THEY WILL WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ME.
Not that I’m all that into having sex. See my broken vanity. It is mighty. Erf.