Away.
TW: Abuse
I swear, I didn't mean for this blog to be entirely downers. And I promise it won't be! Mindless crap is coming I swear :)
Looking back I think my mum post was a touch heavy, and this one probably won't be too much fun either. But I've been told I need to give myself permission to be open.
So, here goes.
I've been dissociating a lot lately. As a coping mechanism, it's fantastic. It has it's uses in day to day life as well. It's not healthy, let me be clear about that, it's not something you should aspire to be able to do. A healthy person should experience the trauma and respond positively to it, learn a lesson and, in time, stand up for what is right. But as for me I can do it almost on demand. My consciousness can disappear to a whole other place at a moments notice. I never know exactly where it is, but it's away from wherever I am. My physical form sits there with a thousand yard stare, copping every physical, emotional and mental blow I can. Unfortunately I've been doing it during my regular old mundane day as well, so I've been told. To try and battle that my therapist has told me to reconnect and focus on my physical senses, and I don't need anymore reasons to give my little dog a big cuddle!
I've been having a lot of very lucid dreams this past year too. I wake up in a dream just to be in another dream. At time when I do finally wake up for the day, I'm exhausted having been through what I did in the dream. Some of the time it's trivial nonsense, like getting a speeding ticket (never gotten a fine or a demerit point!), other times it's having to choose between myself or [insert trolley problem-esque other option here]. I'm happy to report I sacrifice myself in every dream! That's a good thing, right???
On reflection of my mum post, despite what you may or may not think of her, she wasn't the most consistently horrible person to me. Yes she'd yell a lot and that one really awful thing happened, but there was one who was even more consistently nasty to me. With such clangers as:
"No wonder your mum did that to you"
"Even your parents think you're a liar"
"You are so fucked up, it's hilarious"
"Why can't I be nice? I'm giving up on being nice because I'm not getting anything out of it"
"I'm only like this because of you"
"Why don't you just kill yourself? You're clearly unhappy. It would solve a lot of headaches for both you and me"
"Too bad, I'm never leaving. Be a man and cop it you little bitch"
"Oh you're gonna go message [enter best friends name here] now aren't you, you're such an attention seeker. Go post another line from one of those stupid books you're pretending to read, see if one of those skanks that follow you will give you some attention"
Why no action on it? Because I could never bring myself to hurt them. Classic!
My most recent therapist said I have a textbook fearful/disorganised-avoidant attachment style, so much so that at one point I tried to avoid living (ba dum tss!). I read up on it and think that's a bit silly, yes I crave intimacy and closeness but I don't fear it, nor do I feel overwhelmed or anxious when I get it. In fact I feel like I sink far too deep into it when I do get it. When I think of being really close with someone, I imagine them holding me in a nice, warm blanket that I sink deep into. And never wanting to leave. I look up and see a soft smile, feel a genuine care. God, how I wish I could feel that again. See a smile, be held safe and be told don't worry, it's going to be ok. I want to feel like I can finally drop my walls and just be me, not having to worry.
Not having to think.
What I do understand perhaps is the idea of running away from problems. Hence, the dissociation. I am by nature a problem solver. It's my job and my hobby and I genuinely enjoy it, but that's almost entirely from a logical perspective. I consider myself very pragmatic, using logic to guide my decisions. At the same time, I've been told that I'm highly emotional. A lot more than I perhaps let on. Dad was never a "stop crying" or "you're acting like a little girl" kind of dad, and I'll thank him forever for that, so I always felt safe expressing myself in that way, but he wasn't always super emotionally available. I make a point to try and be more emotionally present, I've been told I'm a lot more sensitive that I make myself out to be at times, another therapist said I'm one of the more emotional people she has ever met, once my walls come down. I suppose once I made it to highschool and entered the real world alone, those walls didn't just go up, they got heightened and fortified. A big part of starting to write again is an attempt to lower those walls.
Another part I understand is feeling like I don't deserve it. Despite being cheated on in all but one of my past relationships, I probably wasn't innocent in it all. I wasn't happy with who I was, I still don't think I am. I didn't feel like I deserved the love that (I thought) I was receiving. I felt like a fraud. At one point, I was comforted through this. Don't worry D, I love you for everything you are and everything you aren't. Then, sometimes in the same day, I'd cop the quotes above for, for example, being unable to walk with them because my back was sore after mowing a 500sqm lawn while recovering from a fractured spine, that worsened because I was forced to travel 150km for Christmas (a few days after the fall that fractured the spine) because I was apparently "just faking it to get out of spending time with me".
Just can't win.
Lastly, the vulnerability. How many more times can I try at this and finally think well, maybe I was never meant to love or be loved (shout out Transcending Dimensions by Northlane). I think the thing I crave the most is GIVING this warm, safe feeling to somebody else. To be looked at and thought of as a safe place, a loving place, an empowering place, a place somebody wants to be where they can be their true, silly, serious, loving, caring, happy, sad, angry, glad self, someone to sing off key with and be comfortable to be silly around. Someone to finally drop all of my walls around. I find some of this in my nephew. I look forward to seeing him at every opportunity I get. I have endless respect for my sister, his mum. She's a super star and is raising an emotionally intelligent young man and I couldn't be more proud of both of them. Sometimes I'll travel the 150-200km to see his soccer games or just spend some time with him. Then I remember, yknow what maybe it's not all so bad.
Is it just validation that I seek? Assurance that I am actually a good person capable of being truly loved? Am I just looking for the attention I never got? Is writing this just me seeking attention? I think all I really need is a hug and to be told it's going to be ok. I want to cry all the time, but I never can. I cried writing my last post, but it was one of those cries where tears come out whenever you blink. That felt nice but I want one of those almost wailing, waterfall type cries. Prior to that it was a puppy that needed money for surgery, which I donated to immediately (cannot help myself). But otherwise, I feel like I just need a major release. You know that swirling feeling in your chest? It feels like a whirlpool in there that ebbs and flows with every breath you take?
I dunno, this really is a just-keep-typing moment.
No music today, though I have Lucid Dreams by Juice Wrld stuck in my head now. But, it's just the sound of the southerly breeze in an empty house.
Empty. Alone. Relaxed. Away.
At peace.
D.
E: JustKeepTyping@protonmail.com