Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 4 Comments

Death in Springtime

This post might be even more important than the last one. I don’t know, actually. I guess the truth is the most important thing, and after that, someone finding something here that they can use to help themselves. I’m speaking hyperbolically because, not only do i tend towards that regularly, i’m sitting in that position quite intensely, at the moment.

I have failed in my attempt to avoid the thing i wished so to avoid. The trap is set every year, and this year i tried so hard to keep my feet clear. Alas! it was not to be. (I’m just being poetic, not fatalistic. Heh.)

The truth is i drowned my sorrows in the bottle for a solid week.
I’d felt stronger than ever, and the best of intentions were tucked carefully in my back pocket. But here’s the truth:

Even though i thought i was telling the truth, both to myself and to this page…
I was not. The bodies were piling up around me, but i am inured to the stench of death.

My trauma is a terrible one. It was the kind of trauma that, once you have seen it, it is tattooed on the inside of your eyelids, forever. Even when i look to the sun, and the sun is so bright i close my eyes. Oh… There it is. It is the filter through which i see all things.

My trauma is always with me. It whispers in my head, it seeps into my heart, and my heart pumps it through my veins. It has been written into my psychic DNA. I can never escape it, i can only learn to live with it, as best i can.

I build upon each little victory. I gain momentum, slowly. Ever-sososo slowly.
Because i fall so often. A little blip here, a slip, a stumble, a tumble down.

I’m not just talking about booze. No, that is the least of it, really. The drinking comes after all the real pitfalls. The trauma, and the vastness of its wreckage always comes first. Liquor does not always follow. In fact, rarely now.
Ah, but the spring is the worst.
The most ripe for such behaviour.
For me, the season’s new life always brings death.

See, i’d been laser-focused on surviving this spring’s onslaught: the amping up of my system, the rising timbre of the voices, the increasing vividness of the memories…
That everything that was going on in the moment, in real time, was able to sneak up on me. It fucking hamstringed me.
My real life was filling up with death and i didn’t smell it coming.
I just tripped over the pile of bodies.

I’ve recently endured the death of a friendship, the death of a friend, and the death of a pet. I’m facing the possibly impending death of a loved one. I’m walking through the valley of the death of a close relationship.
All that while trying to stave off being swallowed by my trauma.

And so, it is okay that i fell. Understandable, even.
Death carries a scythe, and They have hewn me down, as winter wheat.

So, that is my confession.

I’ll try for more tomorrow, maybe, but today i am walking through the valley.
Playing sad songs and writing poetry. As you do.


Y’all Take Care,
~H~

IMAGE: Urip Dunker

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 6 Comments

Dear Diary: I Got Nothin’


I don’t know what to write regarding what’s going on in my life.

The depth and breadth of my self-knowledge is not helping. My sharp insights have fucked off somewhere. I’m floating, disconnected from mindfulness, from self-awareness, from the people i share space with. I’m just existing right now, in this fog of sadness.

I’m unable to access my usual level of vocabulary. Words appear to have abandoned me. My ability to communicate about myself is lost, or maybe it left. Packed up and took off because it needed a vacation. I don’t know.
I don’t know.

I’m so dissociated right now i can barely think.

My husband took our dog to the crematory this morning. His eyes were red and full of unshed tears. I’ve only seen him cry once, and he’s only teared up a few times. Watching him be brought so close makes my own grief cut deeper. Her last week and final moments are all i can think about. No attempts at distraction have been successful for very long.

I lost a dear friend a few weeks ago. It went almost the same way. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and all of our interactions. But then our dog got sick and she was my only concern. A terrible distraction. I was by her side, barely sleeping, until we lost her. And then i tried to write.

It felt automatic and robotic. I felt no emotion coming from the words on the screen. I knew there was an emotional log jam, but i didn’t know what to do about it. I kept pushing, rearranging words, sentences, paragraphs. Putting one work-in-progress away and picking up another. Nothing. It all felt empty and meaningless.

I emote. That’s what i do. That’s my voice. A telling of brutal truths in flowery language. I’m a cheerleader in a straitjacket. My words are fire and ice, sunshine and rain.

I haven’t been able to connect.

Two days ago i got some good advice. Stop trying to write for my money-making platform. Stop trying to produce for the publications i write for. Write something that’s only for me. As soon as i took that to my keyboard, i bashed out a piece about my friend who’d died. It flowed straight from my heart and was done in short order.

I went back to my writing feeling like things were flowing better. And they are… But they still kind of aren’t.

I have relationship troubles – more than one. More than 2, in fact.
I’m facing the very real possibility that my entire life is about to step off onto another path. And while i don’t want that, it might be inevitable.
I’m standing up for myself and becoming more of who i really am, and it’s not being met with applause and congratulations, lemme tell ya.
I have a new diagnosis, and although i require further testing before i’m properly convinced, still, it’s thrown me for a loop.
Pandemic.
Money trouble.
Chronic illnesses; mine and others’.
Death.

I’m running on empty. Trying to function under a veil of sadness and a vague sense of panic. I’m having difficulty with this, a simple diary/update post.
I am dissociated and disconnected. Dissatisfied and disheartened.

I’ve had no anchor to keep me in one place. No person to talk me down. No star to direct my way. I decided to take control of one aspect of my life that i can control. I’m not going to name it here, but i needed something to ground me — a simple thing for me to focus and hold on to. If i can get what i’m after in this area, maybe momentum can propel me into and through some of this other crap.

I don’t know. I’m tired, i don’t have any words left.
Time for a nap.
I’ll try writing again after sleep and food.

I might try checking in here every day with random nonsense and stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Maybe it’ll help.

I’m hanging in there though, and i hope you are too.


Love and Peace,
~H~

IMAGE: Pexels


Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Wishing

I’ve been thinking about a friend i lost years ago. She was a wonderful and supportive person. The problem was, we partied too hard together, and we lacked good boundaries. We drifted away from each other as we both tried to get our lives in order. I think she pulled away first. I think she cut me out of her life, specifically. I was significantly older than her, but in some ways i was no more mature. I say “was,” because she’s gone from everyone, now. Her demons took her from her loved ones and consumed her.

We met when i was in a powerful mania. My personality was in full shine, turned up to 11. I swept many people into my arms then, and held them with one hand, dragging them alongside me like a child with a teddy bear. I introduced her to my friends and we rode the tide until we nearly drowned. Both of us moving away to escape it, keeping in close touch until we could be reunited. But there was something wrong between us then, and that was me.

I was so sick. I couldn’t see it at the time. I presented as a woman entering middle age, but on the inside i was a teenager that’d taken the keys to Dad’s Lambo and gone on a joyride. I was run amok. And she was a broken young woman, looking for meaning, for care and connection… for help. And i consumed her like i did the other revellers around us. I was no leader, no support. But now i can see, just by virtue of the years between us, that i must have appeared to be so. I hid the worst parts of my illness and dysfunction from all but my husband, so it must have looked like one could live the way i was living with impunity. It must have seemed possible that you could have a loving and supportive partner waiting for you at home, while you went out and painted the town red.

It is possible, of course. That is exactly what i had, and what i did. But my partner probably shouldn’t have stayed with me. I’m incredibly fortunate that he stuck with me through such terrible times that were in no small way my own making. Yes, i was clinically sick. Yes, i’d been twisted and busted up inside due to a violent childhood. But i wasn’t without some ability to make choices. I just made wrong ones. I could have done better, sometimes.
But i did not.
I chose poorly, selfishly, childishly.
I chose wrong. And there is wreckage in my wake that i must own.
Relationships, mostly.
My children suffered most of all, but i hurt others, too.
I will never know how much i hurt her.

She’d been on my mind for months and months. In the barest edges of my consciousness i was considering going to her and seeing if she would be open to an apology. I was trying to figure out the healthiest, most respectful way to approach her. I was preparing myself for the possibility that she’d tell me to fuck right off. Certainly her right. I pulled up her social media to see how she was doing. My face turned to marble as i realised she was gone.
It hit me so hard and hurt so much i closed my mind as i closed the page.

It’s been nearly a year since i learned of her death. She’s been creeping back into my conscious thoughts. I knew it was time to begin processing her passing. I’m much more present these days. More vibrant, less faded, more tangible, less nebulous.
And so i actually didn’t switch when i went back to her page and it hit me that she’d been gone less than 2mos when i’d visited her page those 9mos prior.

I’d dissociated immediately. My brain took that information and hid it away, because that’s what i do in overwhelm. I run and i hide. On the inside.

But i’m sitting with it. I let it seep into my skin and settle into my blood. She’s not here anymore. I hurt her and i’ll never be able to tell her i’m sorry. My chance to make amends is gone with her to the grave. I do not understand death. I cannot grasp how she has simply, terribly, ceased existing. I was so close to reaching out. There are lessons for me in that. Some might say, Well sure, H. Obviously. Don’t wait for tomorrow, do what you can do today.

I don’t think that’s it, though. There’s truth to the adage yes, but i wouldn’t apply it in this case. My process was a wise one, and it was mine. My timing didn’t fit with the way things happened, that’s all.

The lesson is pure affirmation. It is cementing things i’ve already begun learning.
Life does what life does. It just lives until it doesn’t anymore. It does as it will until it cannot and then it stops. I aspire to live life on life’s terms.

The other lesson is harder and sharper. It is that her life and her death were about her, not me. They were no longer any of my business. She was under no obligation to wait around until i was ready to try and right whatever could have been righted between us. She was not a thing for me to use to make me feel better about myself.
I know the truth of this in a way that makes me happy and sad at the same time.
Happy that i am growing up.
Sad that it came too late for her.
Not that i could have saved her, no. I no longer suffer under those sorts of illusions. I laid that burden down some time ago. But she deserved an apology from me, and any amends that she might have allowed or even welcomed.

I am deeply sorry for being a single moment of pain and sadness in a beautiful life that ended far too soon. I love her so, still, and that will continue. And i will always wish…



IMAGE: Marek Studzinski

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Wrung Out

I’m crying everyone’s tears
I have already paid for all
my future sins
There’s nothing anyone
can say to take this away
It’s just another day
and nothing’s any good
I’m the king of sorrow
~ King of Sorrow, Sade

I’m suddenly empty inside. Numb. I’m angry and sad and i want to crawl under the covers and eat/drink/drug myself into a coma. I want to be on the outside like i am on the inside. Empty, cavernous, echoing. There are tears on the inside, but they flow slowly down the sheer rockface of my organs and guts. Erosion too slow to be of any note. I remain hard and implacable here.

Whispers flutter up from the deep of me, like little birds that fly into the garage and can’t escape. The door is open, but their panic blinds them. The ceiling is not the sky and they flap around in the corners, their tiny fluffy chests heaving. When i try to help them, say gently shoo them with a broom, it only gets worse. I’ve learned to leave them be, and they’ll eventually make their way out on their own.

I wonder if that’s the answer for the ones caught inside me. I try to focus in on them. I try to find mercy inside me, or grace, but all i can muster is a detached kind of concern. It’s like when an ambulance races by on the highway – i hope the people involved will be okay, but i don’t know them and can’t help them, so that’s as far as i go with it. My casual wishing fades with the sound of the siren.
This is not dissociation – this is emotional flatness.
This isn’t me in any of my iterations.

I am HistrionicaButterfly. Intense, dramatic, passionate. Full of thought and art and creation. I talk i make i hold i care i trytrytry. But i’m sitting here made of stone on the inside. I’ve become a damp cave, with little light and less warmth.

I’m looking at the entirety of my childhood, and i’m wrung out. All the emotions are still there –the various and varying levels of anger and sadness and pain– bits of beak and feather flapping about in a tizzy. I watch from a hard distance. I feel mostly meh, although i sense danger is close by.
I’m standing on ice, and if it cracks, i’ll plunge into the glacial waters of fear that flow through me. Rivers that have carved deeply into me. They rush over me and overflow my banks in their season.

I don’t know if i’m relieved or grateful or if i feel anything at all about it.
I’m dispassionate, and this is not me.
This is the work and i’m doing it.
I check in and stay in it and ask questions and address needs.
I use the tools i have and try new ones too.
I make small adjustments. I get quiet and listen some more.
And then i do more and other things. I give my body what it’s asking for, and i care for the broken off bits of me that bounce around in my head.

I try to stay anchored in the real world. I sleep, i eat, i shower, i cook and clean. I have mundane conversations with those who live here with me. I play mindless games and watch silly programs to distract me from the thing that is happening inside me. I’m turning into a zombie. I do what’s in front me; i keep moving forward. One shuffling foot in front of the other. Neither careless nor carefree. A Borg cut off from The Collective. I wander around inside my Cube with purpose, but minus something that once tethered me. What gravity have i lost?

What me is this, this colourless, tepid thing?

Keep flying for you
Keep flying I’m falling falling
And I’m falling falling
And I’m falling falling
I’ve given you all that I have
I show you how I want to live
How could I love you more
~ No Ordinary Love, Sade

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

On Lying, Being Fake, and General Asshattery

I read a meme a few months ago, and i’ve been turning it around in my brain since then. I knew right away that i wanted to write about it, but any time i sat down at the keyboard, nothing i bashed out seemed to capture my feelings. I can’t find where i saved it, i can’t even be sure i did save it, but that’s okay, i’ll give you the gist.

The creator of the meme requested that at their funeral, people tell the truth about them. Further, they asked that no one give banal, meaningless or patently false accounts of them as a person, because they didn’t always have a smile on their face, and sometimes they were an asshole.

It struck me, and resonated, long after i’d seen it. It also led me to some other thoughts that are along the same line… I think? I’m going to attempt to present these ponderings in a cohesive way, but as with anything i write, just because i get it, doesn’t mean you will.

I want to be real and i want to be known.

But sometimes i’m cool with being hidden and fake.
Like when i’m at the injectionist’s for some cosmetic work. I can see how most people act when they’re there. It took some courage to go and be surrounded by young, beautiful women who look like they’re IG models, and older sophisticates who appear to have a lot of dough. I don’t have much chutzpah left over after coping, to boldly be my weirdo self. I feel fine about plastering a huge smile on my face and using that voice – you know the one, right?

Some people i don’t know well enough, and some set off inside alarms.
It’s fine to behave in a somewhat generic, slightly subdued way until i know folks better, i think. If you want to come at me as 100% you, i’m cool with that, i just personally feel a bit safer in new social situations with a bit of anonymity.
There’s also the odd time where the person i’m interacting with triggers me (reminds me of an abuser), or just plants immediate red flags – like the person who stares in an overtly sexual way.

Many situations don’t require me to be my full self, and some things flow better without the full meal deal of my personality.
When i’m at the till, paying for my items, and there’s a bunch of people waiting behind me, neither the cashier nor the waiting customers are looking to forge a lifetime bond with my (incredibly charismatic) self.

I don’t think i could be described as down-to-earth, or even genuine, as an ex-friend once informed me by email (yep, still a bit tetchy about that one). I’m a multiple, after all. My face can be a mask, my body the puppet of a person who is not quite me. I’ve hidden my true self from others many times – both reflexively and with conscious intent.

I always want to know the truth, but sometimes i’ll lie, and i don’t feel bad about it.

If i don’t want to do something, and i don’t have the energy or desire to go into the reason why, i will totally fib.
If it’s a large gathering, or maybe i don’t know the person i’m doing the thing with very well, i feel no guilt begging off due to illness.
I should say though, that i’m fairly up front with my mental/emotional/social issues, and i’m selective about who i socialise with, so most of the time i can just say, Can’t people, and it’s understood and accepted without further explanation.

If my response could hurt someone’s feelings, i might lie.
That How do i look? one comes to mind. If i’m close with the person asking, i may say if they look awful. I’m more apt to pick something i like, or pick 1 piece of the outfit to change. I know for some that’s not good enough, and i’m obfuscating. Okay. <insertshrughere>
Sometimes i’ll purposely misunderstand the question. I’ve found that people are often loathe to restate, so i can avoid saying the potentially hurtful or contentious thing.

I’m glad when people ask more than one question at a time. I’ll pick the one i can be honest about without getting into something i’d rather not. That dislike to restate the question comes into play here.

I think there are a lot of situations where lying is fine.
It’s been my experience that everyone lies.
It’s also been my experience that, those who rail about hating liars are often the biggest ones, and i give them a wide berth.

There are only 2 people i won’t lie to – my doctor and myself.
The rest of you are fair game.*

I bring this up because i’m not “honest to a fault”, and i don’t want to be.

Another thing i hear said with respect to the dead is that they would give you the shirt off their back.
Well, i almost certainly won’t, unless you’re my child.
My husband won’t get the shirt off my back, and neither will my best friends.
I may die of exposure without my shirt, and i like living.
If there’s room, i’ll share the space inside my shirt with whom i will, but that’s dependent on circumstances.

There is a point at which i’m giving too much, and the point is mine to discern, and i do so carefully. I will not empty my vessel for anyone, and seeing as my children are all grown now, no, not even for them.
I don’t see the virtue in poverty.
The dead share nothing.**

Another thing you couldn’t say about me is that i’ll do anything for anybody. I won’t.
Which brings up judgment too, because i will judge. I will ask myself if doing the thing is worth my time and resources. If i don’t think it is, i don’t do the thing.
That’s not to say that i won’t still throw good money after bad, or help someone that i think may not appreciate it. I’ll pour myself into an unwinnable cause.
But i’ve taken a hard look at the situation before i decided to throw the dice anyway, because sometimes i win when i lose.

Oh, and my favourite remembrance of the dead:
“They were always happy, and always had a smile on their face.”

NO.
I’ll be damned if i’m going to smile when i’ve got nothing to smile about. Hiding and subjugating how i feel is one of the things that screwed me up this badly.
I can smile at a person on the street, or at someone who’s providing me a service. I don’t need everyone to know i’m having a low day (mostly). I don’t need to tell everyone that i’m currently riddled with anxiety (usually). But if we have any kind of rapport, i may very well tell you a bit about my sadness or stress, because it helps me, and i dare to think it could help you, too.
This is not contradictory to my prior statement that sometimes i wear a mask on purpose.
These are choices i make, dependent on the situation, with whom i’m dealing, and how many spoons are in my drawer. I’ve collected a number of tools over the years that are there to help me be functional in my day-to-day living. If i can, i generally prefer to let it all hang out, but that is not always wise, or appropriate, or timely, or safe.
Discernment. I haz it.
Sometimes it’s no one’s business.
Further, it’s normal and fine for folks to have neither the time, nor the desire to get the full HistrionicaButterfly experience. I can be a lot.

Which brings me to the best part.
Occasionally, i can be a good and proper asshole.
Let me demonstrate my honesty.

There are reasons and explanations and mitigating factors that perhaps cause and at least influence my assholery, but the unvarnished truth is:

– i hate questions, and will obfuscate, hedge, and get outright testy in my answers,
– my sarcasm can verge on caustic,
– i’ll disappear with no warning or explanation,
– i keep even the most worthy people at arm’s length,
– i regularly make mountains out of molehills,
– i’ve got a know-it-all streak,
– i’ve bitten more than a few heads off for no good reason,
– i’m so focused on myself i can miss the needs of others,
– i can be vicious,
– i sometimes manipulate others to get what i want,
– i’m an excuse-maker and dodger of responsibilities.

There are more, but they fall under annoying personality traits rather than character flaws. Like my ability to talk the leg off a chair (or clamming up when it’s most important that i talk), or spend us into the poorhouse, or my exhausting need for reassurance and approval, or my constant self-doubt.

This is me. This is who i am. Dying doesn’t remake me into a perfect human. Loving me doesn’t mean that i wasn’t sometimes hard to love. It won’t be disrespectful to tell the truth about the kind of person i was. In fact, it’d be honouring me.

I’ve failed many times. My biggest failures involve the people i love most in the world.
I’m standoffish, emotionally unavailable, unreliable, and intensely self-focused.
I can be pushy, obnoxious, thoughtless, demanding, critical, and infuriatingly contrary.
It’s only the truth.
It doesn’t negate all the wonderful, beautiful, amazing things about me. (I won’t go into those, because the length of this piece would treble. Heh.)

Of course, once i’m dead everyone’s free to sugar-coat me or not, as they will.
A person reading this might think the truth doesn’t matter so much to me, but in fact it does, very, very much. I share this nakedly in part to emphasise how important it is. I don’t think it’s contradictory or even ironic.
Do yourself and the rest of humanity a favour and don’t slap a coat of Hollywood paint on the portrait of my life.

I’m absolutely fabulous, and also an utter shithead.

If I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up.
~ Albert Camus

*I’m being facetious, here.
Also, my blog is brutally honest, in case anyone was wondering.

**I’m referring to literal resources, here. Food, drink, shelter, money, physical effort, even time.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Untitled

This is not my garden,
i’ve tarried here too long
I cannot keep it,
it does not rise to my touch

This is not my garden,
its fruit does not sustain me
The taste is bland and unripened,
the sun too rare

This is not my garden,
nothing here will grow
No verdance, no smell beckons me,
It’s time for me to go

This is not my garden…
It never was

Image: Gardens of the Dying Light, by QueenOfRohan

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Water of Life

CW: Contains indirect references to childhood sexual abuse. This one is heavy for me – emotional. It may be for you, too. Take good care.

**********

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.
~ Christopher Morley

So i made it to my therapist’s office today. And i started crying as soon as i saw her.
In the parking lot.
Crying.
Fuck.*

Tears are difficult for me. There is, as with just about every fucking thing in my life, a push and a pull with tears. As an infant, i know that i would have cried. I know from gathering as much information as i could from people who would talk to me about her honestly, that she wasn’t a terribly attentive mother. Unless family or someone she wanted something from was around, and then she was perfect and doting. But her mask would slip occasionally with those she called friend. She’d leave me cry in my crib for too long, saying i needed to cry it out or i’d be spoiled. Claimed i was colicky and would drown me in gripe water (which contained alcohol back in the day), and push baby Aspirin. Based on behaviours i do remember from a young age, i imagine the ignoring of my needs went for longer when no one was around to see.

When she’d spank me or hit me, sometimes she’d stop when i cried, and sometimes she’d go harder. If i cried for something other than beatings, say, disappointment or sadness or fear, she’d berate and humiliate me. I was a big baby and needed to toughen up. She’d accuse me of crocodile tears. I remember her telling other people when they’d show concern, “Don’t believe it. She’s faking. She’s an amazing little actress.”

She groomed me for predators from infancy, so i’m going to assume there were some tears involved there. And the people she gave me to were the hardest, when it came to shedding tears. Some of them would hurt me worse if i cried. Some would complain to my mother and then she’d beat me. And some needed me to cry, which became a problem when sometime around 3 or 4, my tears dried up. She took me to the doctor about it, i think, but i don’t remember what he said.

I do remember what caused my tears to flow again. I was around 12 or 13. I’ll tell that story another time, because this subject matter is already heavy enough.

I’ll share another interesting tidbit about me and tears, though. For my whole life, since my tears stopped flowing and through their adolescent return, you couldn’t tell i’d been crying when it was over. No matter how long i’d cried –i could, and did, bawl my little eyes out sometimes– all i had to do was wipe my eyes and blow my nose, and no one knew.

Sometime during this recent bout of therapy, that’s changed. I’ve never been asked, “Have you been crying?” until a couple of months ago. My face gets blotchy, my eyes and nose get red… It’s like my body is giving up all its ghosts. I’m no longer carved from alabaster. I’m becoming a living, breathing, crying being. Filled with snot, apparently. Buckets of snot.

I’m coming to life and i’m mourning my dead. The tears water me. They wash off my grave clothes. They cleanse me of the filth that coats me that was never mine. I’m pink and warm underneath. Red and blue and purple and golden light! I pulse and sparkle as life flows into dead limbs. I’m sitting in my cemetery, surrounded by beautiful dead things, and as i water the barren sand it becomes fecund. Living things are sprouting up around me. Pretty things. Green things. Life from death. Beauty from shit.

Which is all very lovely and poetic (and still true), but in the meantime – i cry. I want to cry all the time, and i cry just about every day.
People, i am not a fucking cryer. I get choked up over art and suchlike. Verklempt. Sometimes my eyes will fill up with tears, but they generally remain unshed. I can cry for other people, too. If a friend/loved one is suffering, i cry. But that place where one sobs until there is nothing but hitching breaths and hiccoughing? That place where one connects with one’s own pain and suffering? Almost never. And until my first round of effective headshrinking with my current therapist, if it did happen it wasn’t really for me. I didn’t cry over what happened to me, what was DONE TO ME.

Now i am.
I’ll be attending to some task, speaking with someone, reading something unconnected, sitting on the goddamned toilet – and the tears will suddenly come. They spill out and pour down my cheeks, hot and salty. My heart aches and my belly clenches. I weep. I mourn. And i know this is only the beginning. I know there is an ocean of tears inside me yet. A torrent waiting to be unleashed.
I’m going to let them come.

I’ve marinated in self-pity before, and i fucking deserved to. But this isn’t that.
I’m transporting myself back to my childhood, to bear witness to the crimes committed against me. I look upon that innocent little baby, toddler, child, adolescent, teen, and yes, young woman. I watch what happened to her. I listen, and i feel.
And then i mourn. I weep for her suffering. I ache with her needs. I lament her violation, and i grieve her death. She died over and over again, scavenged bits of flesh and blood from the corpse and made a new thing. A zombie. A golem. A robot. A doll.

The water flows and there’s no bottom to this well inside me.

And i thought it was hard to cry. To release my white knuckle control and cry. To stop dissociating from the grief and cry. To feel the pain of past abuse in my body today, and cry. But it is not the hardest thing. Not by a fucking long shot.
Why does a baby cry?
Hunger, thirst, pain, fear… Unmet needs.
What do we do when a baby cries?
Figure out which one it is and meet the need.
Sometimes though, we meet all the needs and the baby still cries. What do we do then?
We soothe them. We hush, we hold, we comfort, cuddle, softly sing. Blankets, stuffies, low lighting. We whisper words of love, vows of protection. We promise that everything is going to be okay.

And now, here we are at the hardest thing.

I’ll try to post about it in the next couple of days.
Until then, try to have as good a weekend as you can.
I will, too.
Do they still make tissues with lotion?

Love and Peace,
~H~

*If cuss words aren’t your thing, you might wanna pass on this piece. I mean, i often let 1 or 2 into my writing, because i write in my RL voice. What you’re reading is how i talk. Yeah, i’m pedantic and histrionic and show-offy with my admirable vocab. I’ve also been known to swear like a trucker made a baby with a sailor, and it was born with an itch it can’t scratch and a 2′ wide yapper.
This post is feelin’ like it needs to be full of swears.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Thanks Mum

My mother-in-law died, and we held a memorial.
I did a thing that, even 2 or 3yrs ago i might not have done nearly so well. I met a family obligation appropriately, with maturity and i think, grace. I was present, not just in the body, but right there in the face, for almost the entire time. I didn’t use anything in order to cope, and i was genuine and sincere. There was a moment when i could feel myself sliiiidiiiing… But i knew it immediately because i was practising mindfulness, so i was able to recognise that i was pulling out of the face. The words that were coming out of my mouth were things i wouldn’t say. I reined it in by excusing myself from the conversation and the group that was chatting.
I wasn’t too nice, too friendly, or too funny. I shed a few tears, but the deep grief is for me to express privately, and it’s not ready yet.

I shared a few words with those who’d gathered there, about what she meant to me, and i was there for all of them. I hadn’t felt that way since the first time i sang a solo in church. I don’t think i’ve done anything like that after high school. I was a karaoke hostess for a couple of years in my late 30s, but i’m not sure >>i<< ever sang a single song. I sang at my grandfather’s funeral, and i think that’s the last time i did anything in front of an audience sober. Until i stood there, in front of those people who’d come to mark her passing.

Growing up i loved public speaking and performing, and i was good at it.
I’ve spent some time grieving the life i might have had if i’d been allowed to pursue it, or even just been supported when i did things on my own. My mother was concerned with me only insofar as i was a source of positive attention and income for her. She wasn’t much good at encouragement beyond urging me to join something. I think she wanted me out of her hair, so she’d push me to participate in after school activities. The problems came when she was called upon to help, like bake something for the tea, or drive me to swim meets, or be there when i was given an award.

The church choirs and the school plays were the worst. I always got noticed. The teachers and congregants always sought her out to share how impressed they were with my talent. She was approached by people a couple of times who wanted to represent me, saying i could get commercials and jingles and little bit parts were available – even in a city like mine. I loved performing. I loved entertaining people. I loved just speaking in front of people, whether it was a poem i’d written, a scripture in church, or just a book report in class. I’d get excited, but i never got stage fright. I don’t know why those things never panned out for sure, but Mom definitely had something to do with it. Whether it was jealousy, envy, laziness, or she liked the way she had things set up already, i just don’t know. What i can say for sure is that she was certainly lazy, a flaw that only grew more pronounced over the years. Also, when dealing with my past as an adult, i looked back and saw that she’d been markedly nastier and more violent after a school or church performance.

At the end of all the angsty feels, i chose to see it as a dodged bullet – my various mental diagnoses left untreated in the entertainment field may well have made me more infamous than successful, if i’d managed any success at all.
Still…

That’s what grownups do, yes? Or maybe i’ll call them “growers”, as in, those who grow. Not just up, or out, but in and down and through and deep and beyond. People who have the kind of life that looks good to me seem to, anyway. Those who find happiness and satisfaction in their day-to-day, and if there’s none to be found, then they look harder, look forward, look upward, look anywhere, knowing it’s there somewhere, or at least believing in its possibility. Those folks. There’s no particular character trait or personal voodoo woo-vibe they got goin’ on. The only thing i’ve found that they have in common is the way i feel when i’m around them. It’s simple, clean, fresh, pure, real, fundamental and beautiful and… And that’s all i can tell you. What exactly the quality is i don’t know, but i know that i like it. I know that i want to be around people who have it, and i know i want some of it for myself. Not theirs, though. I wanna make my own.
But still…

My mother took a possible future from me. I cannot say whether it was accidentally or on purpose, and that part truly, no longer matters to me. The thing that matters is that i’m mad at her for it. I resent her for emotionally hobbling me. And i mourn my lost opportunities. All those doors, from the ones i walked by at her bidding, to the ones she quietly clicked closed when i wasn’t looking, to the ones that must now remain locked. Sometimes i’m still sad about it, and nothing i’ve overcome or accomplished has changed that. Today i may be a queen, but my parent still gave me away for pride and the king only wanted me for wealth and i can’t really make straw into gold, i’m just clever and lucky.

It may appear that i’ve strayed wildly from my initial paragraphs. How did i get from eulogising my dear mother-in-law to Rumpelstiltskin?
I’ll tell you – i’m not exactly sure, but it feels organic as fuck.
I was standing there in front of those gathered, wondering if my legs might give out, sniffling in punctuation, but i was looking up and making eye contact. I knew what i was saying and i was there and invested in communicating what she meant to me and how i felt about her.

One day i’ll tell you about my brief career as a karaoke hostess, but for now let it be enough that i was in full-blown mania, and my multiplicity was out. of. control. I took the job because it appealed to my need for attention and excitement and drama and some of my Bit N’ Pieces still wanted to sing and dance and play dress-up and flirtyflirtflirt with eeeeverybody!
The thing is, i had crippling stage fright. I simply could not sing without a drink or 10 in me. I’ll analyse it/break it down another time, but for now just get this, okay?
I never had stage fright as a child and now it was ALL i had. I drank the stage fright away, but i also drank me away – that was someone else singing.
And i think the same thing would have happened had i tried out for a play or took a public speaking engagement.

But i stood there fully present in my body, communicating my thoughts and feelings to a group of people that mattered to me. We were all there for Mum, and so i cared about every person there, and it was important to me to share my love for her and my grief at her passing. And i believe i was able to do so.
Since then i’ve been trying to write about it, but i kept putting it back in my unfinished folder, because i knew it was missing something. I hadn’t found my voice to tell you the story yet.

I have, now.

My mother took away my voice. She silenced me to the point where my brain made other people to speak for me. And while her death set me free, it took me decades to find which voice was truly, most essentially and basically, mine.

My mother-in-law gave me the beauty and marvel and magic that is a mother/daughter relationship. She gave me a safe and nurturing place to say things that daughters say to their mothers – and she always responded to me with a mother’s love, in a mother’s voice.
I wanted to convey to the people in that church, just how powerful and beautiful her gifts to me were, and i think i did, a little.
But now i see that she gave me one more gift, even in death. Her love of me inspired such love in return, that i was able ditch the stage fright. No need for liquid courage, no help from the Peanut Gallery.
I stood in front of a group of people and told them something i wanted them to know.
And they heard me and they felt it and they got it.

She helped me get back something that my mother took away.

Thank you, Mum.
I miss you.
I love you.

~H~