You know, i noticed I want it all. I want all the details. I think of the tiniest details and then look for more. I cant help it, and its not just for pleasantries or of fake interest. I truly want know it all, the past of a life, the thoughts that were registering through it all, and what was processing, the senses that happened in each moment of your life, what parts stuck out to you, why they stuck out to you. if you thought another person had another thought on our thoughts, what types of people did you include. any time i encounter something new, my minds just spirals into a wonderment of wonders, i have this drive to know , to understand, to empathize, to observe. to feel.
Each song I hear, so many cascading moments happen in a row. I first take it to myself, what…
Maybe my therapist really does mean it when she says, “You’re RIDICULOUSLY talented.” Maybe it’s not just her doing her job because I pay her. Maybe the guy friends I have are not really just trying to get me to sleep with them. Maybe they actually enjoy JUST being my friend. Maybe my husband really does still think I’m beautiful. Maybe my son really does mean it when he says he doesn’t feel neglected and that I am the ‘best mom in the universe’. The thing is, guys, that I’ve never been able to believe these things…
Because my own mother didn’t love me. Right now, she is out there living in the world, and she has not been there to support me through multiple traumatic events. It’s a different feeling than having a dead mother who used to love you when she was alive. Guys, my mother is on Facebook. I have her blocked because I can’t risk seeing what she posts on my relatives’ walls. If I find out anything she is out there doing INSTEAD of trying to mend things with her grown, firstborn daughter and her first grandson. It kills me EVERY SINGLE TIME someone mentions her, or tells me any details about what is going on with my mom, stepfather, and my half-siblings. I have had to wall off people who just REMIND me of her. Why? Because I can’t sit around having panic and rage attacks when I have an autistic son to raise with nearly no family support. I CANNOT ALLOW her to keep breaking my heart. Because people whose hearts are broken cannot function well enough to handle the massive responsibilities I have right now.
So, I’ve been having some breakthroughs.
When I’ve been doing my yoga in the afternoons before work, I’ve noticed this feeling in my stomach. When I am able to relax my abdominal muscles, there’s been this putrid sensation in the center of my torso. It feels like my guts are rotten. I’m not kidding, it is this feeling like I must be dying it feels so horrible. I’ve figured out what that is…
It’s the shame. Guys, I have shame that you wouldn’t believe. I truly have more sympathy for any other human (or mythical character) than my own inner self. I could explain to you how Hitler or Satan are better than me, seriously. This is all based on the training of my life by other people. I have been treated like actual dirt on the ground by people who have claimed to love me and care about me.
And we aren’t talking about just a couple of guys while I was dating. There were several grown men who broke my heart heartlessly. But, two-thirds of a very, very large family. I would estimate I lost about 60 people from my life in one summer. Imagine in your own mind a slide-show of people you feel connected to, and then subtract 60 people from your top 90. All those people are gone. And then after that, one of your best friends of your life kills herself. The cat you had for 13 fucking years, who was with you during domestic violence, dies. Your grandma gets breast cancer. Your grandfather gets and dies from colon cancer. Your only son, the only child you ever plan to have, is diagnosed officially with autism, and you come to terms with the fact that your husband most likely would be too (if we could swing another $1000 just to find out). You do all of this without those 60 people, you cry, you struggle, you feel scared, isolated, alone, because all of those people no longer (or did they ever?) care enough about your presence in their lives to make an effort to see you without your mother being there. I had hoped they would take an interest in forging a relationship to just me, because I am still a relative, even if I can’t mentally handle being around my mother.
No, five years, guys. Those people are all gone. And get this, as long as she is alive, I cannot mentally handle going to the funerals of our shared relatives. I could never risk being around her in such an emotionally vulnerable time. She takes advantage of it, and uses it to fuck me up even more. I CANNOT BE AROUND HER. But the last five years have been about giving my own self PERMISSION to feel that way about my mother. Now I am to the point of forgiving myself. I am not rotten to the core as my physical yoga insights seem to be hinting at. I have never done anything to deserve the kind of shame that I force upon myself.
I don’t know why, but once again, there is a song that seems to have saved me…
I got a REALLY good massage earlier. The kind that loosens those knots of emotions. Out of nowhere, listening to the same song on repeat that I’ve been listening to for three days, I broke down crying, and I realized just how very little over the last five years I’ve actually allowed myself to cry about losing my family. I’ve boxed it in. I had to. My son needs his mother now. Not some depressed, anxious, and angry hot mess. So, I swallowed that pain, and pushed through, and physically, I pay that price every single day with infinitely tight muscles, like I have a black hole in my own torso trying to swallow me. My body fucking hurts, and it never relaxes. Well, at least it didn’t. I am slowly noticing a little bit more flexibility in my yoga, I am noticing that I give in just a little more during a massage, especially tonight.
The mind and the body are like a mobius strip. They are the same things, reflected in different ways. My body has forced me to start listening to my own psychological needs. My body is forcing me to process this, so I can move on with my life.
I sang at an open mic the other night. It’s been like 13 years since I was on a stage like that. I missed it. I forgot that I needed it.
Guys, I’ve got to fuckin’ forgive myself for being an imperfect human. I think I can.
What if I were actually somebody who liked me? What if I actually believed I was a lovable person? What if I actually approved of my own reasoning for the decisions I make? What if I considered myself to be responsible and educated enough to make decent, although imperfect, decisions? What if I saw myself for the loving person that is displayed in almost all of my behaviors? Inwardly, I logically know that I’m a good enough person, I just never allow myself to inwardly feel like I’m good enough. This is the training I received in life: how to hate myself completely. That’s about the only thing I’m very certain I’m good at. Out of nowhere, I can suddenly be consumed with an overwhelming feeling that someone somewhere doesn’t like me for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter if I know them, like them, or respect them, for some reason their opinion would always matter more to me than my own opinion of me. This is the only way I knew to evaluate myself… by gauging who I am off of the opinions of others. It is my duty to maintain the status quo of my worthlessness. That has been my life’s path, up until around the beginning of this year. I promised you, guys, that I would slay the fucking lion in my very first post, and here you are watching me do just that.
The insights I’ve been having over the last six months to a year have had me making an incredible amount of positive life changes. I am handling the massive amount of responsibilities I have by using various self-care techniques, I’ve been practicing more kindness with myself, and I’ve been comforting myself during the hard moments.
This has been the pinnacle of the process of mourning the loss of my living mother.
I have finally learned how to be my own mother.
Even though she never did, I am learning to comfort myself, I am learning to tell myself when to relax and how to relax. I am the one making sure I meet the responsibilities necessary for a happy life. She never bothered to get me in therapy, even after I attempted suicide multiple times. But as an adult, though, throughout much of my life, I’ve been broke as fuck, I have never given up the search for the right therapist.
I could have given up after the first few fucked me up even worse with all the drugs they were prescribing me. They have put me on nearly every SSRI, sometimes many at the same time. They have put me on antipsychotics and even stimulants. But they would only give me an anti-anxiety pill when I was in a psych ward because they were afraid I would become addicted. Most of these doctors had known me for less than an hour before they would write at least one prescription. Guys, they are corrupt as fuck. Using state money to buy drugs to fatten the wallets of Big Pharma, while what’s wrong with me could only truly be fixed by someone talking to me long enough to learn about all of the trauma I was dealing with. I never needed any medicine. I needed human contact with a responsible and trained professional familiar with the signs of childhood trauma. I literally fell down the rabbit hole that is the mental health system for decades, spinning my wheels and wasting precious years that I can never get back…
Because no one would take to the time to see the truth about my life… to understand what I was living through, and to validate to me that I could trust my own instincts that told me there was something wrong with the way I grew up. That it all left me with some unfortunate coping mechanisms which, although they were what saved me as a child and teenager, are not acceptable adult behavior.
Meanwhile, each trial run with, not only ineffective, but worsening psychotropic treatments, was causing me tremendous interpersonal problems. When I was put on multiple SSRIs by a psychiatric clinic while attending college at age 18, I became zombie-like just before my semester finals and ended up missing at least half of the tests.
I lost my full-ride academic scholarship because of that. I was hospitalized for suicide watch, and I lost my job soon after. I had to move back in with my narcissistic Mom, who I knew secretly felt better about herself when she saw me failing. She liked feeling like she was smarter than me because I’m the reason she couldn’t finish high school.
When we were alone once, in my bedroom when I was a teenager, she asked me, “You know what I would have done if I hadn’t had you? I would’ve been a high school coach.”
You and I both know she could have become a coach while raising a child. So, how is it that my birth, or my very existence, stopped her from following any of her own dreams?
Because dreams take hard work on your own part in creating them. It was much easier for her to be lazy, and just blame me for all of her problems.
Since starting my new job in the last month or so, I have widened my social connection quite a lot. I have made friends with some new people. I have been accepted into a new circle of friends. This is such a big positive for anyone… except when you (and your son and husband) have been all but abandoned by ⅔ of your family. We’ve barely heard a word in five years… dozens of relatives. Your belief in the security of relationships becomes completely diminished. When the people you have spent nearly every holiday, wedding, graduation, and funeral with, your entire life, just suddenly drop you like a rag doll they’d been carrying, you begin to doubt whether people who don’t share your DNA can love you any better. It becomes incredibly hard to open up and trust new people. It is just too much of a risk.
Slowly, I am…
I am learning to trust others…
And I am learning to trust myself.
I am trusting that someone out there can be helped by something that I write. Even if you haven’t read this yet, I know there are at least some of you suffering the horrible plights, and I know that you feel alone. I’m here to tell you, if you are suffering silently with incredible emotional pain, even to the point that you can barely function in your daily life and responsibilities…
What is it that I’m wanting? Why do I keep doing the things I’m doing? What is the purpose or end goal of the behaviors I tend to engage in?
Why am I here, doing this, right now?
I’m searching for something. I’m trying to hang on through the hard part in order to get to something better. I am working my ass off without being able to pay my mortgage. It’s been almost a month. I am still worried about losing our home. It sucks. I hate it.
Can you imagine how much it must suck to not be able to afford even a used push mower so we can mow the damn field that our yard has become?
You may be wondering how I have allowed my life to get to this point, but I’m telling you that every reason is related to PTSD. The self-sabotage, the self-deprecation, the feelings of overwhelm, depression, and panic. These things have run my life for almost as far back as I can remember. Early childhood trauma is something that a person just can’t ‘get over’. It helped shape who they were becoming at a time when they were still formulating their own sense of identity and beliefs about the outside world. We were impressionable, and impressions were made which were not conducive to our very development as future adult humans. Our internal growth was stunted. We are not fully developed, psychologically speaking.
Our task, the one thing standing between us and true adulthood, is to work through the trauma and finish developing. As long as the trauma consumes you, you will cease continuing to grow. As you work through it, you are able to finish whatever development was arrested at the time of the original cause of the trauma itself. That part of you has to catch up to your actual present age. You will mature that aspect of yourself, finally.
I’ve been witnessing this type of growth within myself, I’ve seen repetitions of similar situations which had led to each of the traumas. It’s almost like I subconsciously recreated the situations within my life to test myself again, and see how I might make it, now that I am a different person. That’s why I started looking for a job. Holding down a job has always been a struggle for me. I was called ‘lazy’ during my preteen years, even though I helped wash dishes, washed my own laundry, and babysat my siblings for free, whenever asked. I internalized that so much that I, for most of my adult life, have pushed myself to do as much as possible until I almost collapse from exhaustion. I never give myself credit for any of it, because I go and self-sabotage the hell out of every situation. Depression, anxiety, ADHD-like symptoms, sometimes even rage attacks out of nowhere; these have plagued me since I was 9 years old. I barely know anything different.
So, what’s different this time? Why do I believe I can hold down a job now? First, I have been a dedicated mother for nine and a half years, and even though I’m not perfect, I have succeeded at giving him a significantly better life than the one I had as a child. Second, I have begun to finally see the error in the origins of my sense of self. I am finally able to objectively see that I wasn’t a lazy child. I was a perfectly normal child with dysfunctional parents. Throughout my adult life, I have been able to develop impressive skills and accomplish amazing things… in the short bursts I allowed before I destroyed my own efforts for the status quo.
Change is hard, guys. But… so is staying stuck in trauma.
It can be very scary out here in Atheismland without the safety net of belief in a god who can assist me in times of great turmoil. But, I cannot help it any more than when I used to believe wholeheartedly that God would take away my depression. Belief is never about just the facts. People build belief out of personal experiences. The way you observe other people and the world at large to be, that is how you will come to understand the world. All of our perceptions are different because they are all based on our individual pasts. Belief is simply based on your own memories. Memories of what someone or some people told you, memories of the greatest and the worst times in your life, where you felt the most pleasure and the most pain. And you go about your life trying to experience the most amount of pleasure (whatever that may be) and the least amount of pain (and not just physical pain). Sometimes we inflict pain on ourselves because it distracts us from the more painful pain. This is also known as self-destructive behaviors. If you have encountered a trend in your life that those around you tend to be believers in a higher power and also those same people tend to be good, moral people whom you may admire and wish to be like, then you may end up believing in God yourself, simply because it’s what your unconscious mind wants you to believe in order for you to produce a similar result for yourself. On the other hand, if the majority of religious people you have encountered have been phony, immoral, or even abusive, well, you may naturally gravitate away from those things, feeling a strong connection between the religion and the behaviors you knew to be very toxic and destructive.
It’s not that I completely discount the possibility of there being some kind of intelligence to the universe. I just don’t see how any of our world religions or modern belief systems have anything to do with it. The gods described in ancient texts and in pop-culture, New Age interpretations of God, are just not as big as something that intelligent. An intelligence big enough to create a big bang is way too busy and impersonal to be worried about whether or not you thanked it for the turkey on your table. It is way too big for our bullshit. And, as most of us should already be aware, WE ARE NOT THE ONLY BEINGS IN THE UNIVERSE. All of the smartest astrophysicists of our time know that all the data point to this fact. We aren’t alone. The very conditions that created life on our planet have incredible odds at being replicated all over the universe. Therefore, any ‘god’ that created our ‘world’, would also be in charge of any alien species and all of their bullshit. It’s time to stop thinking of such an intelligence (the intelligence behind nature) as a ‘being’ that would have the same intentions that we would. Forget the idea that ‘god’ would be like us, with jealousy, and anger, and a need for atonement. This recognition need not dampen the spirituality. It’s still possible to believe in a collective consciousness, psychic phenomena, the amazing changes that happen in the brain during intense prayer or meditation. The obvious energy that animates us during our lifetimes which leaves at our death and travels toward a bright loving energy in the form of a white light where our own beliefs of the afterlight seem to play out before us in a place of disattachment, a peace which cannot be known in life, when worry about survival consumes us night and day.
Life is a challenge. We don’t understand it. We haven’t been given the rules. We make them up as we go along. More specifically, we make ourselves up as we go along. And this is the purpose of beliefs. They guide you. They tell you what to say and how to behave. Who you are.
An atheist is not an atheist because they have NO beliefs. They simply do not mimic the beliefs of an ancient idea of God. They have updated their understanding of the universe to the modern time, full of better explanations than could be made in previous times. Scientists, and followers of science, are not necessarily unspiritual. A scientist is studying the REAL God. The massive collections of energy, mass, and relationships between those things which give rise to this overwhelmingly complex place (or thing) that we live in. There is so much mystery surrounding it, and scientists are the ones investigating and defining it. Nature on Earth, the cosmos, the HUMAN BRAIN and how it works. These things are God to me. I bow down and worship the God behind the world I actually live in, the one true, albeit obscure, creator – the God of science.
There are people out there who are molesting children, shaking and hitting infants, cooking meth in front of children, leaving children in hot vehicles. With that in mind, how could I ever consider myself to be a bad parent? Because society has set a bar of perfectionism when it comes to childrearing. Everyone seems to act like there is this definition of what it means to be a good parent, but the fact is there is no specific definition. Sure, there are certain things like chaining your children to a bed, or hitting them hard enough to leave a mark, those things are NEVER okay. But, for those of us who truly do love our children the way our DNA and hormones were functionally made to instill within us, those of us who wholeheartedly want the best for our children (which is the majority of us), the bar has been set way too high, and judging by the trends that I’ve witnessed in social media and blogs, a majority of good parents are judging themselves very harshly. I think it’s because we all just want the best for our kids, and that judgment has us holding ourselves accountable in a way that maybe the previous generation didn’t do for us. If you were traumatized by violence in your childhood, you will not want that for your child, therefore, you will judge yourself harshly if you ever become violent at all, or even have violent thoughts, which for anyone exposed to violence previously will be at least somewhat part of the shaping of the personality in later relationships. If someone has ever been violent with you, you will have the reflex to feel compelled to respond in the way that you were responded to in the past by others. The way you were raised may always be your reflex response. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to overcome these propensities. But, it is possible, with force of will, and eventually habit, to unlearn that reflexive position and adopt a new position based on a completely different perspective. You have to unlearn the self-loathing, and learn to love yourself.
This is one of the hardest things a person will ever do in their lives. But, it is possible.
I have been processing a lot of my old suppressed feelings about things that have happened. As I process it, I find I can describe it with more and more detail. I can feel more and more of the feelings associated, and maybe even have a cathartic cry.
The tides are still turbulent, but I am weathering the storms.
PTSD used to be known to affect mostly combat veterans. But, now it is being understood what should have been understood all along. Trauma happens to most of us. We deal with it differently. We gravitate toward our own chosen method of escapism which results in addiction. We become depressed, anxious, or develop symptoms that mimic ADHD, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, and even schizophrenia. We are fed a sampler platter of various psychotropic remedies, to no avail.
What about those of us who have survived rape, attempted murder, multiple types of childhood neglect and abuse?What about victims of domestic violence, the children who witnessed violence and crime? What about the children who suddenly and tragically lost a loved one?
Funny story about the recommended book listed below:
I actually read through most of it in just a few days’ time almost a year and a half ago, just before I started seeing my current therapist. I had checked it out from my local library at a time when it was a new addition to their branch, so it was only allowed to be checked out for two weeks at a time. As I read it, I had used small post-its to mark every part that seemed relevant. I resonated with that book so much that literally every page I read had at least three post-its. Then I began trying to ‘work’ through it, as in use it to help me with my trauma.
Guess what? It takes more than two weeks to work through trauma. So, eventually I started racking up the fines for not returning this and the other books I’d checked out the same day. This went on for six months, until I received a letter from them saying that they were about to turn me in to the local police (no, this is not an exaggeration). It took quite a long time to remove all of the post-its, but I did return it, and did not go to jail over it.
But even if I had, it would have been worth it, because that book was a first for me in understanding what was going on with me physically. I had seen two clinic doctors, who both believed the problem was psychological. I saw two chiropractors, with no ease of my pain. But, whenever I got a massage, I would go through huge emotional roller coasters that would eventually result in growth. I now understand they were allowing me to relax enough to process my pain in very small increments.
When stress from your current life keeps you too distracted to deal with the past, it just becomes layers and layers of trapped emotions. And then add to that the frustrations with trying to get rid of the symptoms, just so you can function.
I highly recommend this book, guys. If you think there is ANY chance that you’ve been traumatized by something in your past, you may be fighting demons of which you aren’t even aware. They may be draining your energy, your patience, and your potential. And if it is true, there is NO SHAME in it. We cannot help how things affect us. Any more than we can help where and to whom we were born. Any more than we can change our DNA, and what type of personality we will have, or our physical makeup. Yes, we are responsible for all the choices that we make in response, but the fact of the matter is, things have happened to all of us that were beyond our control. And for many of us, some of those things were traumatizing. You and I are allowed to own that.
When do I really, actually allow myself to relax? I can’t even pinpoint a single second out of any day where my entire body feels at ease. About four years ago, when the trauma of having 2/3 of my family abandon me and my son after I stood up to my mother’s abuse really sank in, my body just became clenched and stayed that way. It was too much for my heart to really absorb at that time, so I just kind of boxed it in and never processed it. My mother got away with horrid abuses toward me, and our mutual family members have never held her accountable. They have continued their relationships with her and abandoned their relationships with me and my son because it was easier on them that way. None of them truly want to face who she is because it would disrupt the family too much. They have all watched on Facebook as I have blatently made it clear that I am HOMESCHOOLING MY AUTISTIC SON WHILE WORKING AND GOING TO COLLEGE. And I have done this with very little family support. Virtually nonexistent when you count the physical distance between me and my father and stepmother and my in-laws, who are all very loving and well intended, but live 45 minutes away. I have VERY HIGH STANDARDS for my son because it’s what I was deprived of. I wasn’t protected so I make DAMN FUCKING SURE that I protect him from the kinds of neglect and abuses that I was exposed to. I don’t let just anyone watch him. Especially because I’ve always known he is easily manipulated, which I now know is part of his autistic traits.
Guys, my kid is fucking amazing. I know a lot of parents say that about their kids, but, even if he wasn’t my kid, I would adore him upon meeting him. He is different. He is himself. I love how little he cares what other people think. I ENVY that about him. And it is a trait that he shares with his father that was part of the reason I fell in love with him. I adore people who are not afraid to be themselves, even when it’s not socially accepted. This is why I’m an advocate for gay people, or cross-dressers, or transgendered people. I may not understand what it feels like to be them, but in watching the ridicule and hate that they endure sometimes just for being honest about who they are, I believe them that that is exactly how they feel. They are just being honest, even when it’s hard. I don’t need to understand why. I’m not them. It’s not my life to live. It’s just like in the early 90s, no one believed that depression was real when I was a 12 year old girl suffering with it, now how many people are being medicated for not only depression, but anxiety, and multiple combinations of the two?
I am resentful at life in general that I am now working 3 jobs, homeschooling my autistic son in the opposite way from how I was raised. It’s like I’m scraping and mustering whatever inner strength I can muster after the decades of continuous trauma I was subjected to… I find the strength I’ve never had in order to give him all the love I never had. I want this kid to have the absolute best shot at life that he possibly can have, because so much of my life was wasted. So much of it was spent trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Society taught me to love and honor and be loyal to my mother, but my body, my body kept trying to tell me over and over again, with panic attacks, with rage attacks, with clenched, knotted muscles, with a jaw that didn’t release for nearly a decade. And now with the torso of glass. I’ve been doing yoga, stretching more, getting regular massages, and using a tennis ball to loosen the knots. I feel very, very slow progress happening. But any impatience at all on my part just slows it down even more. So, I have to be happy with the pace I am taking. I can only hope that the progress will continue.
Why does it feel so fucking bad when it’s exactly what I need? Because progress means change, and change FEELS TERRIBLE. At least, it does at first. Change of any kind is stressful on the body and psyche. What you have to focus on are the results. Yes, this feels shitty right now, but what might be the long-term benefits of allowing myself to feel some shittiness right now?
I’m scared to death to be suddenly working 5 days a week while homeschooling my autistic child. But, I’m not gonna give up on the homeschooling, that’s one thing I am willing to make the biggest sacrifices for, I believe that much that it’s the best thing for my son. But the thing is, homeschooling is fucking expensive. I pay taxes for the public school system, but I buy all of my books, pay for all of our online subscriptions for various educational resources, pay for all of our field trips, extracurricular activities (physical education, art, music…)…
What I’m really coming to right now is an understanding that my feelings are very often exaggerated from a normal emotional response to common situations. Because of past traumas, I am braced mentally and physically for the expectation of the worst. From other people, from situations, from whom I had believed to be god, from the universe at large, and from myself. My entire being, at some point, became overconsumed with a sense of tragedy and heartbreak. The human psyche can only take so much abuse before it alters itself to just help you get through the rest of your life without risking going through it again. You make yourself really, really, really small. You squash your own talents and intelligence so you don’t risk being brought back down. You don’t want to expose yourself to chance. Your entire life eventually becomes ‘how not to get hurt again’. And then you live in that mode.
And then there’s the other part of you. The part that wants to live. It keeps fighting with that other side, trying to find some level of freedom. You live this internal struggle that the smothering side always wins.
Even with all of the wonderful changes I’ve made lately, I still feel clenched like I have a glass torso. This tension actually runs from the top of my head to the muscles in my ankles. Something still has me blocked. I still can’t trust.
Truth Serum 