Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Soldiering On Then…

I grew up needing to be rescued, but no one ever came.
I grew up knowing something was wrong with me, but never knowing what.
I believe these are 2 of the biggest reasons my personality became fractured and in some ways, warped.

The person who made me did not meet my basic needs, and also consistently hurt me. Now that i have the benefit of some education and emotional distance, i can see that it created both an empty well and a vacuum inside me. I’m not even sure my mother loved me, although i do believe she tried. I think she rebelled against her parents and refused to give me up for adoption because her well was empty – she needed someone to love her, and she knew (hoped?) that her child would. So growing up, not only was i not fed properly on an emotional level, what bounty i may have had as a child to share with others was almost entirely used up by her. And so i lived my life needing: attention, acknowledgement, acceptance, affection (henceforth to be referred to as the 4As)… All i can tell you is i must have gotten enough to keep me alive, because here i am, but it was most definitely not enough for me to grow and develop properly. I was nutrient starved – both quantity and quality was lacking. I was malnourished, and as with any child who’s not properly fed growing up, my growth was stunted. And i was always hungry.

I can see now how emotionally immature i was growing up, indeed, how far i’ve yet to go. As a child at home, i learned to keep to myself and be as quiet as i could be in order to avoid abuse. I could still be very… well, ME, at home, but only when Mom was of like mood. My home was the very embodiment of the adage, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy,” and so i learned to behave in accordance with her moods. Even if she was in high spirits, it was possible for her to turn violent. In a flicker of the Almighty’s eyelash she could go from laughing with me to beating me.

From this i learned to gauge the moods of the people i was around, to determine how i should act in order to get what i wanted. And since i almost never got anything i wanted from anyone, i learned that my thoughts, feelings, and desires were probably not right/good/appropriate and i should therefore bury them. Not that i had much success, mind you. I was a terrifically abused child, and my woundedness leaked out all over the place. I had discipline problems at school and elsewhere, and i’ve written much about my social ineptitude.

I was constantly starved for those 4As. I was afraid to ask for them, and plus, i didn’t even know how to ask. I rarely asked for the tangibles, like food, clothing, shelter, entertainment – even though i often went without. Parents are supposed to meet their children’s needs without them having to ask -at least in the beginning- and then slowly teach them how to meet their own needs, AND give them the emotional vocabulary to ask for what they want from others.

This is where i believe i got a bit warped.
On some level i knew i wanted the 4As, but i didn’t know their names, nor did i know how to ask. The behaviour modeled for me at home was immature to say the least, and nothing short of abominable in many respects. I learned very early on though, that we behaved one way at home, but entirely another way whenever we weren’t. From that, i think i was able to glean some information on how i should act, based on how i saw other people act. Still, what little instruction i received from babysitters and relatives and educators was not enough to counteract what i was receiving at home.

This is very complicated, at least it is for me, and i want very much to be clear. I’m not sure i’ll be able to entangled all the thoughts in my brain sufficiently to communicate what i understand was going on, but i’m trying very hard. Just on the off chance that there is someone out there like me – someone i might be able to help, if only by sharing.

You see, my mother didn’t have any small emotions, she only had big ones. For what i suspect are myriad reasons, she couldn’t stand peace. She craved upheaval, chaos, and drama, and if there was none, she would bloody well create some. She kept her mask tightly in place for the outside world (it slipped over the years), but once safely ensconced at home it came off, and she would be her real self. She was angry and mean. Now that i’ve learned a few things, i suppose underneath all that was fear and pain, but mostly what i saw was anger. Even her silences were menacing; they filled me with dread. Sometimes it was a relief when she’d snap and beat me. Okay, she hit me all the time, but i mean lose all semblance of control and beat the everloving snot outta me. She’d often be quite a bit nicer to me for some time afterward. (The last few times she beat me there was no nice period.)

So, whatever natural personality traits i may have been born with, like being theatrical and gregarious and effusive and intense, i think they got contorted somehow, becoming misshapen by my upbringing. Further, i misused them to achieve my unmet needs.
And therein lies the tremendous difficulty i’ve had accepting my DID diagnosis.

More on that, probably tomorrow. Until then, may your Monday be as good as a Monday can be. Heh.

Love and Peace to All,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Sledgehammer, Part Two


I hit a wall, I thought that I would hurt myself
Oh I was sure, your words would leave me unconscious
And on the floor I’d be lying cold, lifeless
But I hit a wall, I hit ’em all, watch the fall
You’re just another brick and I’m a sledgehammer
You’re just another brick and I’m a sledgehammer
~Rihanna

When my mother died i thought it was the most horrible event of my life. I can remember numbness and shock. I remember 2 of my siblings shuffling around like wide-eyed zombies, and 2 of them giving voice to the pain and loss we were all feeling. Overwhelmingly though, the impression i took away was one of confusion and not a little exasperated and annoyed.

It was a start.

I hadn’t been close to her for the 2yrs or so prior to her death. We’d had a falling out of sorts, over an issue i won’t be discussing here. Suffice to say, she was punishing me by not only cutting off our relationship, but refusing to allow me access to my siblings. I’d been thrown into therapy almost against my will due to some family legal issues, and my mother did not care for the way things were going.
I was talking.
I was telling.
I was not allowed to do that.
It was implicitly known that whatever abuse was done to me had never happened, as soon as it was over. It was never to be discussed, and i know now from my own investigations into my past, that the few times she was confronted it was cleverly denied. (If it was a family friend, the friendship was suddenly over. If it was someone in authority like a teacher or social worker – we’d move.)

I was in a religiously run halfway house for women in crisis. The women there were both young and old, wealthy and poor, different colours and creeds. We were addicts, and we were battered, we were mentally ill, and we were sexually misused and maltreated. We attended classes on everything from addiction and treatment to life skills like how to balance your chequebook and how to get a job. We went to school and we did volunteer work. We exercised regularly and were taken to gyms and swimming pools. Each of us had a worker assigned to us, most of whom lived in-house with us, from whom we received one-on-one counselling.

It started in the classes at Native Alcohol Services. The home where i was did a lot of work with First Nations women, and NAS offered daytime classes and they accepted everyone, even non-aboriginals. I still remember the name of the woman who taught the class. Darlene told us about her life on Rez: the abuse she endured, her descent into addiction, and how she got sober and got educated and became an activist. She was tiny and powerful and i was mesmerised. She handed out worksheets and questionnaires and i filled them all out diligently. I wanted the teacher to like me. I want to impress her, so i work hard and i fill it all out as completely as i can.

I’m 21yrs old and i am realising for perhaps the first time that i was abused growing up.

My mom had so many wonderful qualities. She was warm and funny and highly intelligent. She knew a little bit about everything, was a great conversationalist and could hold her own in many an intellectual discussion. She was an excellent cook, a superlative baker, and had a gift for any craft she put her hand to: sewing, knitting, crocheting, fine needlework. She had perfect penmanship – i’ve never seen more beautiful. Although never more formally educated than her high school diploma, where girls those days could avail themselves of some intensive secretarial training, she initially surrounded herself with intellectuals and various highly educated professionals. She did so by incredible typing skills. Although slow compared to some at 65 words per minute, she almost never made a mistake, and had a gift for deciphering even the most illegible scrawl. She eventually made her way to a local university, where she ended up working for the head of the department. For extra money she would go in to work at night and type up grad students’ theses. She’d bring me with her and i’d wander the halls, never getting into any trouble, but i can tell you i had some adventures. She was well-liked and found herself invited to professors’ homes and student parties alike. I was brought along to these also, where i learned that if i sat very quietly and just listened, no one would notice me and so i wouldn’t be put to bed.

I don’t know exactly who or what got to her, but some of the people she hung out with were into some cutting edge new therapies. Self-exploration and self-discovery. What started with Gestalt therapy, Erhard and EST, took a wrong turn somewhere and she became involved with some bad people and some evil things. I didn’t understand at the time, but i do believe that’s when my mother really died.

I don’t know if i’ll ever be able to sufficiently describe my feelings for her. I loved her certainly, at least when i was a child, but her parenting was, from the very beginning, so selfish and self-focused, that i felt more towards her as one might their god. I was in awe of her. I feared her. Most children want to please their parents i imagine, but it was more than that for me – i sought only to please her. I would search her face for micro expressions, listen intently for tone and inflection, puzzle endlessly over her behaviours… Always, always to gauge how she was feeling, what she wanted, had i done right, had i done wrong.

I think some of her manipulations came naturally. It started as a natural human quality, and was likely skewed by the lack of attention and love in her home life. I can tell you absolutely that all of the therapy, counselling, and encounter sessions she ever participated in never ended up making her a better person – only better at screwing with others to get what she wanted. She was, at the end, an incredibly dangerous person, limited only by her appearance, or those either lucky or savvy enough to pick up on the sickness that was much, much more than skin deep.

Which brings me back to her funeral.
There were over 100 people at her funeral.
There were only a handful of people there who’d known her longer than i had, and no one who’d spent more time with her.
I knew maybe 2 dozen of them.

There was a receiving line afterwards, and all these people filed by that i didn’t know, telling me things that should have been gratifying, but thanks to the education i’d been receiving at the halfway house, they unsettled me instead.

The priest spoke of their meetings together and of her desire to convert and her love of and identification with, the Holy Mother. (Is there an are-you-fucking-serious font?!)

Woman after woman embraced me and told me she was their food sponsor and inspiration. (Um, did you notice she’s over 500lbs?!)
How she’d been through so much and had come so far.
Really? How far is that, because she still has a filthy house, a huge, filthy body, and she’s still beating the shit out her children that have the misfortune of being too young to get the fuck away from her.

Not that they would have, if they’d been able. I mean, i didn’t. I’d leave home and come back, leave and come back again. I had broken away from her because she’d put me out.
Our separation was her idea. Oh, how it must have rankled that the law had taken things out of her hands. The legal system had finally stepped in to do its job and was protecting me from further abuse by prosecuting the abuse that they could.

The loss of control must have driven her crazy. First thing she did was take my siblings away from me. Over the years she’d made the delineation between them and me more and more clear. It was like i was the unwanted, adopted girl, and they were the prodigal son, reincarnated and returned home. Not that being so spared them any abuse; no, their lives were full of pain and neglect. It was more subtle torture for me, a reinforcement of my otherness and aloneness. She kept me separate. Always only hers.

So, when i went to her funeral my sister and my brothers were afraid of me.

And that is the woman that all these strangers were mourning.

Are you beginning to see, reader, why i am so afraid?

My mother taught me hiddenness, she exemplified laziness, and though many believed otherwise, she was diseased and rotten inside.

I often feel as if i’m fighting against what i was intended to be. I’m often afraid that, deep down inside, i’m bad. That maybe i’m tricking everyone just like my mother did. You can say, Oh H, look at how far you’ve come and how much you’ve accomplished…

Yes. Well. Didn’t they say that about her, too?

Yes, in the next thing that you will say you are quite right. I am not beating my children, my house is not filthy and neither am i.

This is why i blog. This is why i share my thoughts with you. Because as i’m typing i think it is the laziness that scares me more than anything.
She did less and less, until finally she couldn’t have saved herself had she wanted to.
She sat there on the couch, massive and naked and stinking, watching television while her children starved and her house fell apart.

I am terrified of that level of laziness. I fear that it’s inside me, and not too hard to reach.
I had so much potential: highly intelligent and gifted in many areas. Successful in most things i tried. Yet here i am, nearly 50 and with only a couple of years of basic, adult functionality under my belt. Could i have been more if i’d only tried harder?

Well that’s an easy question to answer. Brutally – yes. Yes of course. But i didn’t and so i’m not and it is what it is. So then the next question would be whether or not my reasons are valid enough to justify being at this point in my life rather than somewhere much further along in my personal development as a human.

Don’t worry. I’m just sharing with you what life is like as me. This is how my brain works and these are the thoughts that i have that are mine and are not yours because they are mine. Heh.
I know that the answer is that i am not bad, and while i struggle with laziness because it was so perfectly modeled for me growing up, i am not at that level. I am relatively successful, relatively functional, and reasonably good, with intentions, goals, and long term plans that are already in play to be consistently better.

While there will realistically be set backs, and perhaps even glorious failures, i know one thing as certainly as anyone can know anything:

I will never, EVER stop trying.

END, PART TWO

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Sledgehammer, Part One

WARNING: This piece is about my relationship with my mother, and includes references to both physical and non-physical forms of sexual abuse, including rape.

“Let me tell you about my mother.”
~Leon

I don’t really know what happened to my mother. She told so many stories that cannot now be verified, and i’ve caught so many of her lies, that i cannot paint her picture with much detail.

Abstract expressionism it is, then.

My mother was born out of wedlock in 1945, to an young Canadian nurse and a British RAF officer.* She was adopted out to a first generation Canadian couple in southern Alberta. They’d lost their first child, a son, within weeks of his birth, to measles, and my grandmother was unable to bear more children. They adopted her first, and then later, a boy. This was during a time when many people believed that adopted children had “bad blood”, because they’d been born to loose, sinful women.

They were raised in a place where nearly everyone, including their relatives practised a particular faith, a faith my mother’s family decidedly did not. The bullying in school was constant, and terrible. The teachers were all of the same faith, and the bullies were never reprimanded. Her brother though, as a boy and a baseball star, avoided most of the school bullying, and all of the suspicions of adopted children being tainted at home. He had replaced the son my grandparents had lost. Mother was an unfortunately necessary step to getting their precious boy – girls were less desirable than boys, but a girl could get your foot in the door, you see.

She must have at least sensed from the very beginning that she wasn’t wanted. When she was raped by one of my grandfather’s ranch hands, their response must have settled the matter. The man had threatened to kill her brother if she told, but she was hemorrhaging so badly it could not be hidden. She wasn’t taken to a hospital, a local doctor came to the ranch to see to her privately. The man wasn’t accused, arrested, charged, or punished, he was merely fired. She was 5yrs old.*

She got pregnant at 15, and was sent to a home for unwed mothers in the US where she was forced to give her baby up for adoption.* Following the surrender, she attended school away from home, to help keep her secret shame safe from the rest of the town and area. The girls at her school being as purely vicious as they were, i don’t imagine she minded at all.

At 22yrs old, she got pregnant again.
This is the point in her life where i enter, and now there are too many asterisks to even bother using them.

~~~~~~~~~~

-she got pregnant by a married man,
-she was raped by a married man,
-she got pregnant by a man of another faith whose parents would have disowned him,
-she got pregnant by a man who left to fight in Vietnam and was captured in country…

She went again to the States to the same home for unwed mothers, but this time she rebelled. She left and got a job and her own apartment, where 8mos into her pregnancy she was the victim of a break and enter and a violent rape.

~~~~~~~~~~

She fled the US for home, only to go into labour on her way, requiring her to make an unscheduled stop in Vancouver, where i born.

I won’t be going into what happened the first 7 or 8yrs of my life. It’s a story that doesn’t need to be told again. What i mean is, i can tell you a bit about my mom by way of explaining the terrible fear i always carry of becoming like her, without putting myself through the unnecessary pain of recounting the most painful years of my life. The years that fractured my brain into the little pieces that i am now trying so hard to manage and love and maybe even heal…

What i will say about those years is this: Afterwards, i believe that she suffered a crisis of conscience over what she’d done, and she didn’t manage the crisis well. I think she fell into a deep depression. I think she tried to fix what she’d done by having other children and parenting them better than she had me. And when she wasn’t able to (she was better to them in some ways and worse in others), she set upon years of self hatred and vain attempts to excuse her behaviour. Finally, it is my opinion that she eventually gave up and gave in to what she had become, and spent her final years reflecting more and more on the outside, what she was on the inside. Filthy. Bloated. Foul.

It is her final years that have most imprinted upon me this fear i have inside.
I watched her descent into utter depravity. As parts of me can move forward or recede as required, as parts of me can emotionlessly record events i have watched her slow free fall into a bottomless pit of what i can only describe as uncleanness.

I watched the house get dirtier and dirtier, until there were used dishes covered in molding food all over the house, including the floors, and yes, even the bathtub, where they were also covered with stinking scummy water, like the ones that filled every sink.

I watched my siblings get dirtier and dirtier, until their eyes, which looked unnaturally large against the pulled masks of their starving faces, seemed to fairly glow. I watched them climb through piles of unwashed laundry that were stacked higher than they themselves stood, looking to find the least filthy item to wear to school.

And i watched my mother. I watched her take food out of her children’s mouths to fill her own gargantuan appetite. I watched her swell from an incredibly beautiful woman who would be called “thick” today, to a mass of heavy, unwashed flesh that topped out somewhere over 600lbs. I watched her stop caring about what she wore, until she simply wore nothing at all. Moving from room to room completely naked. When someone came to the door i had to beg her to drape a blanket over herself. And i was privy to her abandonment of all attempts at personal hygiene, until her stench would fill the room so pungently, that i would involuntarily heave.

I tried to help stem the tide of garbage and odour and clutter and spoiled food, but i was living a life almost completely dissociated from what was going on around me. My room was a sty, too. I would be beaten for it regularly, and it would be clean for a while, but it wasn’t long before it looked much as it had at my last beating. My environment was a reflection of what was going on inside me, just as it was with my mother. I was also terrified of cleaning the house. If i did so under her watchful eye, i’d get criticised, screamed at, and beaten. If i tried to get a bunch of cleaning done when she wasn’t around, i almost never did it right, and she’d beat me when she got home. She even told me once, after my best friend and i had come home for a visit to an empty home full of trash that one had to actually wade through in places, and spent over a day cleaning, that she would have preferred i’d done nothing.

(To this day i hate cleaning the house when other people are around, it makes me terribly anxious and i avoid it as much as possible.)

After i left home, nothing really changed except that my portion of abuse was redistributed among my siblings. I know she beat them until the day she was in the car accident that would eventually kill her. I know that some religious folks who’d been trying to help her went to her home while she was in hospital, to clean it up in anticipation of her return and were pretty grossed out by what they found. I know that i visited her in hospital and begged her forgiveness for all the trouble i’d been to her and she magnanimously forgave me. I know that she seemed to be recovering, but because of her massive girth and doctors’ relative inexperience with the super morbidly obese back then, they missed a small tear in her cecum, which leaked slowly into her guts for nearly 6wks following the accident, causing her to die from multiple organ failure due to sepsis.

And i know it was years before i even began to unravel, examine, and otherwise dissect the relationship i’d had with my mother. I’ve spent years and tears and not a little money in an attempt to learn the extent of the damage she wrought in my life, and to find ways to counteract it all. For a very long time all i could do was stem the flow. I was like her, thinking i was getting better and then i’d find another source of infection that was keeping me sick. And like in our literal lives, sometimes the antibiotic wouldn’t work, or it would stop working, and i’d have to search for something else – something stronger, or something else altogether.

END PART ONE

*Maybe. I cannot verify this as fact, but i have included it because, after years of study and contemplation, i accept that it is probably true.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Under My Dome

This is one of those days where i really, really wish i was normal.

I’m not having that glib toss off comment that people often make about no one being normal, or what the heck is normal anyway. I understand where it comes from, and i know people don’t mean any harm or offense when they make it. And it doesn’t harm me or offend me when it’s made, either. I’m just saying that for today, if one were to make such a comment regarding this post – that might be considered by me to be a little insensitive.

I’m not referring to everyone’s little quirks and oddities. Yes, we all have those. I’m talking about living every single day of your life with a brain that works -in some very significant ways- much differently than most people’s. In ways that slow me down in my daily life, and have even held me back from achieving some things that i’ve wanted to do.

I’ve always had a terribly short attention span. I’ve struggled with concentration. In recent years, with the addition of bipolar disorder, i’ve had an awful time reading. Reading was one of the biggest things that saved my life growing up, and it’s been a slow and exasperating process trying to retrain my brain to read for pleasure again.

My thoughts either race so fast with mania, or process words so slowly with depression and dissociation, that i stopped reading novels. I forced myself to deal with the issue starting with non-fiction. As a person who’d finally broken free of my childhood programming that had taught me not to think for myself or question authority, i was hungry for information. So i started reading a lot of news articles, science articles, political pieces, and learning about philosophy. I’m not entirely sure why it’s been so much easier to read non-fiction, but i suspect it has something to do with fiction triggering my dissociative behaviours because it stimulates my imagination.

I’m trying though. I’ve had to, because i’m currently on a news/social media fast. The last year’s worth of campaigning, leading to the most frightening and disappointing election result in the US in my lifetime, necessitated a break. I’ve got too much going on in my personal life to even begin to process that event. Even typing this little bit about it in my blog is ramping up my anxiety level. And the Peanut Gallery in my head is on hypervigilant alert, meaning social media isn’t a good idea, either. I’m at a high risk for switching, and i can’t ask my online friends to go through that with me. It’s confusing enough for my husband and my children, i can’t imagine how much harder it would be when you don’t live with me, and don’t even have experience with me outside of the internet. (I was gonna say, “in the flesh”, but that sounded a bit dirty. Heh.)

Anyway, i’m trying to read a book i’ve been trying to get through for 2yrs. I’ve read other novels over the last few years, but King novels are especially hard for me, i think because he’s my favourite. I didn’t understand until a few years ago that my experience of imagination is different than most people. My therapist says that i am a superhero, and my mutant power is imagination. I was able to create people and worlds inside my brain in order to escape some of the awful things that happened to me as a child. My brain is a whole different level of creative. Not better than you, but very intense. Like, for those of you around my age, think in Technicolor, with Sensurround! If you’re a more recent arrival on the planet, think over 9,000!

When i found Stephen King novels it changed my life. It was more than just giving me an escape, the fact that they were based in horror helped me stay alive and be more sane. No, really. There were things that happened to me that i never spoke about. As years went by, they became like dreams i had, and as i grew i eventually “forgot” that they were real events and believed instead that they were only dreams. When other young people would talk about their dreams, i would wonder why mine were so strange and terrifying compared to theirs. I think King’s stories made it easier for me to, in due time, accept that there had been true evil in my life, as there is in the world, and that it can be overcome. As if reading about it in well-told stories made what i had lived through a bit more palatable. It was art. Dark, terrible art. It was maybe more romantic/poetic to me, seen through a writer’s eyes. That may not make sense to anyone else, but it does to me. Stephen King helped soften the blow in a way. His stories helped me to acknowledge and accept that my life was a story that he could have written.

For a week i have sat with this massive book in my lap. Forcing myself to read half an hour of this novel every day. It’s laborious and sluggish work. I have echobrain right now, meaning that i hear the sentence i just read bounce around inside my skull over and over, until it gradually fades. This forces me to say the sentence silently in my head as i’m reading it in order to cut down on the echo. Unfortunately, it also sloooows me doooown. I find it demeaning. I know i shouldn’t, but my reading speed and comprehension was something i was always so proud of, and here i am slogging away at a snail’s pace. And when i get frustrated i can always count on a voice or 2 to pipe up in there, which makes concentrating even more difficult.

So this is why i’m whining and wishing i was normal. It goes much deeper and darker than that though. It starts with the once-star-reader-turned-plodding-toiler and ends with oh-for-pity’s-sake-i’m-almost-50-and-i’m-barely-functional.

You thought this was gonna be a bombastic tirade on how you non-crazies have it so good, didn’tcha?

Nah. I’m just PO’ed because all i want is to read my dang story. *sigh*

Who you lookin’ for
What was his name
you can prob’ly find him
at the football game
it’s a small town
you know what i mean
it’s a small town, son
and we all support the team
~James McMurtry

Y’all have yourself as good a day as you can.

Love and Peace,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

To Pay Or Not To Pay

“No price is too high for the privilege of owning oneself.”
~Rudyard Kipling

I may not be currently reaching/helping anyone else out there, but as i currently have no safe relationship in my life with whom to discuss my current situation (totally on me, that), i’m gonna be accountable here. I’ll speak to what i can, and try not to be frustratingly vague. I’ll be sharing what matters, i don’t think the details are that important, and the people involved in what i’m going through very much are.

I’ve been blamed for a lot of things that weren’t my fault. This is not going to be a poor-me post, i’m just saying a true thing. I was the reason for my mother’s pain and failure, and the receptacle into which she poured all her resentment and anger. She eventually added other people to our family and that helped spread it around a bit, but for around 12yrs i got it all. And even after more children were added, she still tended to focus the bulk of her rage and frustration on the oldest child. I know that the next oldest, although always abused, experienced it more frequently and intensely when i left home.

The abuse was always my fault. It was my job to accept responsibility for anything and everything that went wrong, and i was a very obedient girl. I wanted to please. I wanted love. I was well into my 20s before i realised that i unconciously took the blame for everything that went wrong around me. It was a reflex that required no thought, really.

Once i started dealing with my childhood issues there came a number of years where i absolutely could not let anything go. And i sure didn’t take proper responsibility where i should have, either. That pendulum swung hard to the other side, and all i knew was that YOU had done something wrong and you’d better admit it and be sorry. Like NOW.

Okay, well i guess i should stipulate that i only exercised this hard stand in my primary relationship. My husband was the only person i trusted. My trust wasn’t always an awesome thing to have, i can assure you. And the issues i had with him were so minor compared to what he had to deal with where i was concerned. I won’t sugarcoat shit and offer them as Raisinettes.
But i still took a lot of shit from other people in my life. Other people were still walking all over me, blaming me for things were not my fault. Or weren’t entirely my fault. Dumping their burdens on me to carry because they always had.

I’d like to tell you that i learned to stand up to them and say NO.
The truth is i just ditched them or let them go.

And then i started making my way back to middle ground – at least with my husband.
I have learned to take a hard, unblinking look at my own behaviour as well as his, and whatever blame is mine i suck it up and admit it. I accept responsibility and make amends.

The problems i’ve had in my primary relationship have been almost exclusively my fault, or at least they’ve been so big that they were all that we had the energy and time to deal with.
Now, we’ve had a couple of years of relative calm.
No hospitals. No police. No hitchhiking into the city and disappearing for a day or more. No violent switching. No running out to the highway and trying to throw myself in front of a semi. No overspending. No days where i can’t get out of bed.
Only a couple of screaming tirades. A couple of angry walks. That’s it.

My problems now centre around socialisation. Through interactions with local folks i realised i sucked at it. It was all unconscious, reflexive, unhealthy behaviours that were all developed under duress and a need to survive – literally. I tried very hard and repeatedly, to quit acting like my life was on the line and i would die if i wasn’t liked by everyone all the time.
I haven’t been able to manage it.
So i did what i did with the close family and friends in my life. Well kinda. I haven’t ditched them exactly, because most of them were really decent people. They didn’t do anything to me except try to be my friend.

Which is admirable and i appreciate it – more than i’ve been able to say to any of them.
Cuz H don’t go out no mo’.
I’m afraid i’ll never be able to take what i’ve learned into any relationships other than my immediate family. It’s not to say that i won’t ever try again. I just don’t think i can take another failed friendship right now.

Besides, i’ve got all i can handle with this crisis-that-shall-not-be-named going on in my life. Which brings me back around to the start of this post.
If this all goes for shit i know i’ll be blamed. And it won’t be my fault. But i can’t be the kind of person i want to be AND stand up for myself. I will have to let people think what they want to think. Even people whose opinion of me really matters.

It’s really not fair, but it’s the right thing.
The price of being understood wouldn’t be paid by me, and that’s a price too high to pay.

Love and Peace to Any and All,

~H~
P.S. I hope i didn’t say “shit” too much for you. I go through phases with cursing – sometimes i do it a little, and sometimes a LOT. In my writing and speaking life. Sometimes a curse word really is the best word to use for me. Hey, i’ve got some decent vocabulary i could use, but sometimes nothing fits but the “bad” word. I’ve haven’t gone through a crisis this big since i got well (okay better), and i’m scared and panicky and stressed and anxious and, well, if you don’t care for profane language i’m seriously fucking sorry. Heh.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

The Art of Broken Pieces

“When you write, you should put your skin on the table.”
~Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I’m afraid to write too often or too regularly, because i’m afraid of what might come out. I’ve made a firm commitment though, to share how i deal with how my brain works, and to deny it -even to hedge a little- would lead me to stumble on my path. I’m as committed to stumbling as little as possible, as i am to telling you about it when i do, therefore i must write. As much and as able as i am to do so, i will.

Even if all i end up being is an excellent example of what not to do. Heh.

So yes, i am feeling somewhat fatalistic today. Which is odd and also amusing when one considers that i don’t believe in fate at all. Not a whit. Maybe it’s not so much fate, as it is this feeling that comes over me when i’m at the keyboard – the feeling that i MUST do this. The caged bird singing and all that, how poetic, tralala. I’ve expressed myself artistically in other ways, but i was too dysfunctional to pursue any of the opportunities that came my way as an adult. As a child, my seethingly jealous and envious mother did all my sabotage for me. I don’t know if i’ll ever be any good at writing, but i know i have one thing going for me, and that is that i’ve found my voice. I may never bash out any fiction (the mere thought makes me perspire), but when i write anything about my own thoughts and my personal life, i am exactly me, myself, and i. Which is darkly amusing, because i am many parts making up a whole person.

What do i want to write about today? I guess i want to write about what i’m going through right now, which is pretty much what i always write about. About a month ago, something happened that is the worst thing to happen to me since i’ve gotten my mental health on track. I’ve got one full year of no full blown mania or depression, no police or judge involvement, no voluntary or involuntary hospital admissions, and manageable levels of dissociation. I haven’t had two months of that, let alone thirteen and a half, since i went off the rails in 2006.

So i am deep in the shit. I’m going to do everything in my power to maintain my streak, but the pressure’s high, and i know that i might fail. I know some people bristle at the use of such words, but the word “fail” doesn’t bother me at all. I understand that sometimes it can help to shift someone’s perspective in a positive way to use different words. For instance, instead of the word “fail” i could call it a “stumble” or a “learning opportunity”. If that’s what works for you, then you keep doing it. You’ve got to tailor your plan of personal growth to suit your personality. I find a tremendous amount of freedom in calling a thing what it is and just dealing with it head-on. For some people, calling something they did a failure could be detrimental to their health, and i get it. Try not to hurt yourself anymore than you’ve already been hurt. Because of my upbringing, i loathe euphemisms and pop psychology is tough for me to take. Calling a thing what i think it is, helps me stay real and honestly connected to myself and my surroundings. What i mean to say is, just because it would be a euphemism for me, doesn’t make it one for you. Yours may be more accurately called a “learning opportunity”. Geez, i hope i made some sense, there. Heh.

You call what you call it, and i’ll do the same, and neither one of us is necessarily wrong. Although you might be. (I need a smartass font.)

Another word that i use that can make some people uncomfortable -even my therapist doesn’t care for it- is “broken”. Maybe some day i won’t use that word to describe myself anymore, but i can’t see it happening. I was profoundly abused as a child, and i’m broken in ways that will never be fixed. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life trying to emulate what normal looks like to me, and despite my best efforts, i’ve never quite gotten the hang of it. Once the most important thing became to know myself and be myself, the first thing that was abundantly clear to me is that my childhood broke me, and i will never know what i could have been or done with my life had i not been so broken.

As with most things though, i do find that there is a line to walk with this knowledge. I’ve seen what happens when the freedom that comes from acknowledgment becomes an excuse not to bother trying to fix the things that can be fixed. I have dived deeply into the waters of self-pity and while i believe i needed/deserved to and i’m glad i did, there came a time when i knew it was time to get out, shower, and dry off. I will never be returned to my original state, but i can stitch the wounds and set the bones.

I see myself as a piece of Kintsugi, which is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery using lacquer that has been mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. Instead of hiding my cracks, i decorate them with something beautiful and those mended bits become the most precious parts of me. It’s not to say that i take a perverse kind of pleasure in being this broken, it is more that what others might see as useless and throw away, i put back together. And not just in a utilitarian manner – i did so artfully, and now it is even more beautiful and precious than it was in its unbroken form.

Freedom.

I have been broken and i have failed and i am free.

I am currently repairing the chip in my bowl with gold.

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
~Leonard Cohen

Love and Peace to All,

~H~
P.S. Did you notice how i started out writing about stumbling and then got on to failure? I didn’t until i was proofreading. Welcome to how my brain works – she is an interesting bit of stuff. Heh.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Just Blather, That’s All

So Wednesday sucked. Really a lot. And my brain did what it does in order to cope. There was fallout. What i do now, rather than pretend like it never happened, is examine it with a critical (not unkind) eye, learn what i can from it, tweak my life where necessary, and move on. What went wrong was due to not managing triggers well enough to avoid certain coping mechanisms that tend to do more harm than good in my current life.

 

Let’s talk about triggers. I know it’s a somewhat current topic, but i’m not gonna get into the politics of it. Psychpedia says “a trigger in psychology is a stimulus such as a smell, sound, or sight that triggers feelings of trauma.” I was hit hard by 2 intense triggers at once, and i lost my grip on things. First, i had a doctor’s appointment. These are always difficult for me, but pap smears are by far the hardest. Second, i spend the day with family when i have something going on in the city, seeing as i live out of town and i no longer drive. My family has recently moved to a new home, and it’s in an older area of the city, where i endured some of the earliest and most insidious sexual abuse of my childhood.

 

I failed to anticipate the intensity of my reaction and i did NOT adequately prepare for the day. I was fully dissociated before i even got to my family’s home. Fortunately, i found papers that give me a general idea of how my appointment went. My doctor is very involved in all aspects of my health, so i can call if i need more information. My family realised i wasn’t quite myself, and they understand. Once i had some idea that i was struggling, i took steps to minimise any interaction i had with the young people in the house.

 

I’m fairly upset that they saw me in that state, and so right now my inclination is to hide. I don’t think i’ll be going anywhere for the next few days. I’m trying to manage the feelings of guilt and shame, and i know from experience that adding people to the mix will almost certainly cause an anxiety attack.  Realising i was there-but-not-there is sort of like coming home from your normal work  day, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and seeing yourself naked. You forgot to put on any clothes, and everyone you interacted with that day has now seen you buck-ass nekkid. They’ve now seen private bits of you that you’d never have shown them otherwise. I feel victimised all over again, but it’s neither their fault, nor mine.

 

It can be tough to work through.

 

I’ll be better prepared next time. Even this time was better than the last time. As soon as i got enough clarity, i took control of the situation as best i could. I left the home and waited for my husband to come and pick me up at a neutral location. Well, it was a playground that my mother had used as a drop-off when i was very young, but it was preferable to sliding around in a dissociative state in front of my family. I even had the presence of mind to leave my phone and my money at the house. That may sound counterintuitive, but it’s not. I’ve been known to disappear for days when i have the means, and although having nothing but the clothes on my back hasn’t always stopped me, i’m functional enough now that i figured it would be at least somewhat inhibitive.

 

This probably doesn’t help anyone else out there much, but i committed to writing more, and this is what’s coming out. My thoughts are still pretty scrambled, and that, coupled with this feeling of acute shame and embarrassment, is making it difficult to tie it all up in some grand pronouncement of LESSON LEARNED: Achievement Unlocked!

 

So next time i’m in that neighbourhood, i won’t act like it’s fine. It’s not fine. That time in my life was ugly and awful. I will have a conversation with myself about how it’s okay to feel whatever, but it’s not okay to do whatever. I can handle the feelings, the thoughts, the flashes of memory… I don’t need to be protected or shielded anymore. I got this. I can be in the moment feeling the feeling and thinking the thought and i’m not gonna die. I don’t even have to do anything particularly crazy. Heh.

 

I’m gonna go have a nap with Floofy McFlooferkins. I’m exhausted. Just trying to get something written that makes any sense (it occurs to me that this still may not, despite my best efforts) is like a mental treasure hunt through an obstacle course. I have to sift through a lot of chatter and dodge a lot of thoughts that i can get stuck in like quicksand. The best remedy is sleep and puppy shnuggles.

 

 

 

Thanks For Reading,

Love and Peace,

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Discharge

 

 

Hey You.

Yeah, you. I know i haven’t addressed you directly in a while, but i’ve been dealing with some stuff.There’s a shocker, eh? Not so much, i know, but here’s the thing: i still worry what other people think of me. Much less, mind you, but sometimes still too much and at the wrong times.

And that line can be pretty tough to figure out.
Also, i’m not sure in this case that i have.
So, you may actually be sick and tired of hearing about “my struggles with mental illness”. Blahblahblahdeblahblah.

I’m gonna risk it, because getting the kind of better i want to be, is inherently risky. Sometimes people don’t get it, sometimes they misunderstand entirely, and sometimes MissusH, they just. don’t. like you.
So, i’m writing to you on the assumption that a couple of you are going to fall into those last 3 categories… And it’s not gonna kill me.

It may seem to some that being mentally ill is all i talk about. That’s fair. It’s just that i’ve always been this way, and i didn’t know what-in-the-actual-FUCK?! was wrong with me until around 10yrs ago. And for some of you who’ve known me a lot longer than that, i may have seemed relatively okay, just maybe a little odd. You may have given some passing thought to my unmet potential. But my brain has alwaysalwaysalways worked this way, it’s just that i was able to manage reasonably well enough to get by. Then my mom died, and i slipped. Then i had kids, and i slipped further. I fell in love, and slipped even further. And then i lost weight and tumbled all the way down the rabbit hole.

The diagnoses came fairly quickly and easily after that, and i was so exposed and vulnerable, i couldn’t deny them anymore. Yes, it was terrifying (no exaggeration), but it was also such a massive relief like i had never, ever experienced in my entire life up until that point. My life was a winding top that hadn’t yet been released. I had lived my life trying to hold all my shit together, and i’d wound myself tighter and tighter until i was barely functional (and by barely i mean not really).

And to continue the metaphor would be wholly appropriate, because baby, i spun. I went spinning wildly, and everywhere – to which anyone who’s known me over the last 10yrs can attest… Ah, don’t though, plzkthx. Heh. I’ve stopped spinning, but i am wicked unsteady on my feet. I still stumble and totter and weave, and occasionally do a hard lipstand.

I want to live a functional and authentic life, as happily and freely as i’m able.
To that end, i think about life, the universe, and everything. And i think out loud.
If you weren’t reading this – it would still be here. So, you may as well. You know, if you wanna.

**********

I’ve been very focused for the last few years, on curating my life. Not to live in an echo chamber -i grew up in one of those- but to create an atmosphere which is most conducive to growth and beauty. On one hand, it’s involved breaking down walls and busting down doors that were built around me, limiting my access to information and knowledge. I found the forbidden fruit, i ate it, and it’s my favourite. I don’t live in a little, dim shack anymore – i live in the goddamned garden. And i tend to that Tree diligently, that it might continue to bear the fruit that i love so much. So far, that has mostly involved a lot of weeding.

I’ve been pruning people. It’s been one of the most difficult, most scary, and most rewarding things i’ve ever done in my life. Once i knew what was “wrong” with me, i had to look at why, and then once i knew why, i could figure out who i am and what i want and where i want to go. How i get there has mostly involved just removing obstacles. People, whether they mean to be or not, are in my way. They’re weeds, trying to choke the life outta my Tree. And just… NO. If you’re gonna be a weed in my garden, you’ve gotta go.

Familiarity went first. I left the place i knew and went to a place i didn’t know. It made it easier to remove people that had to go. It took me a long, clumsy, awkward and painful time to do it – but i did, and am, doing it. Family had to go first. They thought they knew me. Heck, i thought they knew me too. They didn’t, not at all. And to be fair, how could they, when i didn’t even know myself? I have neither the wish nor the intent to go into any detail, just suffice to say, we were never really family in the first place, and the time has passed for us to be associated with one another. It’s only a source of deep sorrow and pain for me, so it’s been a very healthy and self-loving decision on my part to walk away.

My mother’s death saved my life. She was the most toxic relationship that has ended. Not her choice and not mine, but life’s. She raised me to be a certain kinda way, and i don’t know if anything other than her death could have stopped her from achieving that. Once i acknowledged the relief and release that her passing gave me, i was given my first serious chance at being who and what i want to be. The end of our relationship made change seem suddenly possible for me. It became the benchmark for assessing the pros and cons of my continued relationships with others. Life plopped a gimme into my lap, but the other ones would be up to me. (Don’t get nervous now, i’m ending relationships by walking away. Life has no feelings – i have all of them.)

I think i couldn’t see myself through my own eyes. I was raised to be obedient… subservient even. I was raised to be a reflection of other people’s desires of what i should and should not be. I was raised not to think for myself, but instead to sing out the words and ideas and beliefs that had been forcefully vomited into my brain without my permission. Not once in all of my childhood was i asked what i thought about anything, and the only time i was asked what i felt, it was understood implicitly that i was only being asked to confirm what they thought i should be feeling. Looking back now, i see a group of nodding heads, calmed and comforted by the lack of dissension. It never occurred to me to have an opinion different than my family’s… I didn’t know i could, let alone that i DID.

When i say “family” i mostly mean my mother, and to a lesser extent, my father and stepfather. My mother’s family never had much to do with her, save her parents, and she didn’t much care for any of them, including her parents. My stepfather is living and i have no wish to libel him or his family, only to say that i’m content for things to be as they are. For the loss of my siblings, i hold pain, regret, and some responsibility, but again, i am content. I fear the damage done to all of us by our upbringing is too great for us to overcome. Maybe some day, but not today.

Since pruning my life of family my garden has become more vibrant and beautiful. There are colours and smells and tastes that please me and comfort me and inspire me to work harder and create a yet more incredible space. I’ve rid my life of things that limit its fertility and capacity for growth.

I was told that other people were mentally inferior to us.
I grew up with an epithet for everyone who wasn’t us.*
I was raised to believe that everyone who didn’t believe what we believed would be eternally tortured when they died.
I wasn’t allowed to watch any programs that seemed “gay”, like Laverne and Shirley, SOAP, and Perfect Strangers.
I could bring a black man home, as long as we didn’t make babies.
I was asked to stop bringing my First Nations friends around.
I was threatened with shunning if i ever brought a Mexican home.
Minutes after viewing my mother’s body, i was told i was going to hell because i had a girlfriend.
My mother would have disowned me for my Mohawk son.

Those are just a few things by way of illustration. Life plucked the strangleweed outta my growing space, giving me a chance to get rid of the rest of it. I’ve been able to root out racism, bigotry, misogyny, misandry, homophobia, transphobia, and religion. My life, my garden, my tree, they’re all MINE, and the more it reflects who i am, and who i want to be, the more reluctant i become to have anything here that isn’t also beautiful and pleasing to me. I’m unwilling to please anyone at the expense of myself.

So, that’s where i’m at today. Coming to the end of my mourning period, i think. Trying not to feel bad about it, and also trying not to feel bad about not feeling terribly bad about it.

Gonna go walk the dogs.
Love and Peace,
~H~
*I want to make it clear that i heard the epithets, i didn’t use them.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Aftermath

 

“States are crumbling
Walls are rising high again
It’s no place for the faint-hearted
But my heart is strong
Because now I know where I belong
It’s you and I against the world
We are free”
~Muse, Aftermath

I thought i was fighting my depression. I emerged from my last round with Mania, with my glove that delivered the knockout punch held high, only for that smug bastard Depression to step into the squared circle and call me out. I had no choice but i was already so tired that i just kept pulling him in for the clinch. That SOB easily slipped my hold and clocked me with a combination.

Sucka.

The mass shooting in Orlando was at least a standing 8 count. I was dazed initially, but now i’m pissed. Depression likes it when i’m angry because it makes me vulnerable. And when i feel vulnerable i go somewhere alone and curl up in ball and try to stop my thoughts from eating me alive. Stay away from me when i’m like that because i will lash out at anyone, for no reason other than unfortunate proximity. This isn’t a fair fight. There isn’t even a referee.

**********

I don’t really talk about my sexuality at all. There was just so much inside that needed to come out and be subjected to endless scrutiny. Heh. I didn’t start to really know myself until well into my marriage, so a firm (le hahaha) definition of my sexuality came through the process of my middle-aged self-discovery. Sure, the feelings were always there, but i was raised religious. Severely sexually abused and religious. So everything was all twisted up inside and i had to undo a lot of knots and clip a lot of loose threads to reveal the original weave.

Currently, and to the best of my understanding, i’m a married, monogamous bisexual. My first preteen fumblings were with a girl, my first consensual sexual experience was with a girl, my first relationship was with a girl. I thought all of that was wrong and shameful, and so i hid it. I was well into my twenties before i realised i wasn’t obsessing over certain females because i wanted to look like them, rather that i wanted to be with them. I had no serious relationships with men until my husband. I’ll tell you bluntly that, although i tried to play at it a couple of times, i just used men for sex. I sought women for connection.  I never thought about marriage. I wasn’t driven to be in an intimate relationship with anyone, regardless of their sex. I found it difficult enough to be present for my sons. I had a couple of close girlfriends, but there was zero attraction. Meeting my husband changed everything, of course.

Once i finally had my very own person, i felt safe for the first time in my life. I began to think for myself. I began moving away from people and things that hurt me. I started making up my own mind about things, which included the big three: religion, politics, and sex. Once i had religion squared away, it was glaringly obvious that i’m bisexual. It wasn’t anything that required therapy or prayer. I’m capable of an intimate sexual relationship with a man or a woman. For that matter, i’d include trans, intersexed, and gender fluids on my list of possible partners as well.

As i stated previously though, i’m currently monogamous, and intend to remain so, if everything goes as planned. And because of my situation, most people don’t realise i’m queer. I’m not regularly subjected to hate, whether casual or targeted. As a woman i can relate to always being at least slightly afraid for my physical/sexual safety when i leave my own home, but i’m a cisfemale married to a cismale. No one gives us a second look when we hold hands or openly flirt with each other.  But make no mistake, i’m queer, and the terrible events on June 12 in Orlando felt like a jackboot on my neck.

I was raised to hate myself for myriad reasons, but the hatred i was taught to have for the LGBTQIA community slipped another in there; a silent destroyer. I kicked that lying motherfucker to the curb many years ago, but there are scars of course.

~Like the time i had just left my dead mother’s side as she lay in her hospital bed, only to be pulled aside by a family member and be told my mother had been deeply concerned for my soul, as the whole family was, because they feared i was dating a female. Was i aware i was going to hell?

~Or all the times i was “encouraged” to confess all my homosexual encounters so that i might be prayed over in tongues with much wailing and gnashing of teeth and funky chicken dancing all designed to break the evil “soul ties” i’d created, and banish all the demons that i’d invited in with my abominable behaviours.

~Or the time i lost a treasured friend because after a year of intensely close friendship, she found out my first relationship was with a woman.

~How about the fact that some of my most important relationships would become tenuous if i was too “out”?

As with all of us who aren’t heterosexual, living in a heteronormative world, i have more examples, but not as many as those of you who clearly present as lesbian, gay, trans, or otherwise queer. I’m absolutely gutted for you – for all of us. I’m trying to channel my anger appropriately, but it’s very difficult. I want to aim it at the places that hurt me the most, but it’s probably not productive. At least, it’s not when i’m this busted up inside. Let me make it clear though – i HATE religion, particularly the one i was raised in, but i see all of them as harmful and intrinsically evil. Let me also make it clear that i do not see most of its practitioners that way, but if i was the king of the world…

Anyway…

“From this moment
From this moment
You will never be alone
We’re bound together
Now and forever
The loneliness has gone”

I will continue to fight this blasted depression, and i will win. But i want you to know that i’m sorry for my complacency, unconscious and unintentional as it was.  I will do my clumsy, goofy best to take a more active role in the community. You are not alone.

I’M HERE. I’M QUEER. GET USED TO IT.

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

The Mystical Power of the Ninja Mouth*

Ninja
noun
a person skilled in ninjutsu.

  1. informal – a person who excels in a particular skill or activity

**********

I used to bristle when people would make any reference, no matter how remote, to me being a chatterbox. I still kinda do, but it’s getting better. It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out why i’m sensitive about it – i just had to intentionally wonder for a while. It’s amazing how much stuff gets clearer when i do such an odd thing, eh?

I was a child made for a purpose. I had roles to play and there were scripts to follow, but none of them involved any lines about what was actually happening to me. That was never spoken about, except in the vaguest of terms. They used my nature, my personality, my love of communication, for their own personal gain, but forced me to subjugate all those qualities in any case where it might have been a benefit to me, personally. So i could talk, and in fact i had to talk, but only about the things they wanted, and in the way they desired. There were also periods of strictly enforced silence. I had to speak a certain way in certain situations; sometimes meek, hyper-feminine and unctuous, sometimes precocious and worldly. The times i had to keep my mouth shut were easiest, because i didn’t have to go too far inside myself to get away.

However, when everything you’re told to do flies in the face of every instinct you have, and you’re required to say nothing when you need to scream, it fucks you up, and even the best facade will develop some cracks. Those cracks were most obvious at school. I blurted a lot. I would say strange things at inappropriate times. I was regularly called a spaz. Or i’d say something that was obviously intended to fit in with the cool kids. They’d roll their eyes at me, swatting me like the social mosquito i was. I was a know-it-all in elementary school during class, but the bullies and popular kids (who often fit both categories) had pretty much crushed my love of class time, much like they had any social aspirations i’d held, by the time i hit high school.

Once i graduated and got away from home and school, i tried hard to make friends. I ached for a place to fit in, but talked too much and bathed too seldom. Heh. When i got a chance to talk with someone and perhaps begin a friendship, i came on too strong. I was that guy that approaches you in the bar and you wouldn’t date him for anything because you can smell the desperation coming off him in noxious waves. I must have made one helluva double whammy. I tried too hard to impress. I wanted to be likeable, charming, smart, funny… All of it, all at once.

It took years of practise before i was able to dial it back enough to make some decent friends. Even then i wasn’t any good at sustained intimacy and commitment, whether sexual or platonic. Over time i became adept at acquiring friends, but terrible at keeping them. The closer they got, the more obvious it became that i was chatty, but not talkative. And the few i really talked to would leave. One that i loved and trusted very much even told me that i was full of shit. I didn’t tell anyone anything for years after that one.

I haven’t known what to do about my mouth. Do i talk more, or less? To whom? About what, when? I don’t trust my own judgment because when i finally disclosed my story, my closest girlfriend called me a liar and ended our friendship. I was pretty sure i knew how to have better, longer lasting friendships. By being someone else. It’s hard to be genuine when you’re still chipping away at the marble, not entirely sure what the figure will look like when you’re finished. So i withdrew.

I don’t want to be someone i’m not anymore, and i don’t quite know how to be me yet, so i went away. I went back to START with a brand new playing piece and 200 bucks.

*The title is firmly tongue-in-cheek, fellow nerds, so don’t go full Sheldon on me.

***** END of PART I *****