Memories & Lyrics

…I’m standing at the window, looking out at the beautiful Spring colours. How do I know they’re beautiful? From memory, because everything in my world is black and white, various shades of grey, but never, never colour. The sun sets on the beautiful scenery and I can’t see it. I’m being chased in my mind by the black dogs, and then I’m cynically laughing at the irony. My best friend is my black dog…

…Sitting on the couch, I’m staring at a spot on the wall. We have visitors. I’m sunk so deep in depression, I forget who is here right now. I can’t relate to time anymore because I’m constantly in hell. All I’m aware of is that there has been a stream of visitors in the house for a long time now. They all hug me and feed me and bring me their love and support, and I can’t get out of my fucking head to even thank them properly. I’m a horrible, horrible person…

…I’m sitting in the car waiting for my husband. It happens to be the parking lot next to the place we met, a dark and dingy pool hall. I’m staring at the sign and right below, the bench where we sat together nervously before deciding to walk home together for the first time. I miss those happier times, but I feel like our marriage is doomed sometimes. My depression ruins everything I pass by. I feel as though if I walked by a flowerbed, they would all just wilt from all the pain radiating from me. I look up at the next building over. The address is 331. His number is 33, mine is 31. We always combine them. 331 is us. I’m getting this inkling that some force is trying to give me hope, if only it would sink in…

…I watch TV, I play computer games, I read, as a last resort, I get stoned off my ass, but I can’t forget about him. My dad. I need to start serious therapy, I need to get past this shit, because I can’t survive this purgatory for much longer. And all the time I think of him, this song plays over and over in my mind, it’s the anthem to our entire relationship:

I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Every step that I take is another mistake to you

I’ve become so numb I can’t feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I’m becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
And every second I waste is more than I can take

And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you

…I’ve been in this little white room in emergency for so long, I don’t know how much longer I can stand it without having a full out panic attack. By the time my therapist comes in, I’m hiding in a corner, crying and keeping my eyes constantly on the door, shaking and terrified. She sits in front of me in a chair and as we talk, I feel myself start to relax. She asks about my black eye. I debate for a moment on whether I should tell her that I slipped and banged my face on my bedside table (this is what I’ve been telling everyone else) or whether I should tell her the truth. The words escape from my lips, and I am as shocked as she: I hit myself in the face repeatedly with a hammer. I was insane with pain and anguish and needed a release, but every time I SI’d my husband would get so angry, so I had to do something that I could pull off as an accident. I noticed a scratch there and improvised. There. It’s out. She thinks it’s a good idea for me to wait for the psychiatrist, just in case he can rearrange my meds to help me more. The doctors and nurses come and go, checking out my eye. It’s fine, which I already know. I’m not stupid enough to break bones. I have a good knowledge of anatomy and injuries and I can hurt myself to cause maximum pain without really injuring myself. I guess I’ve become kind of good at this. Hours are going by, every time my therapist has to leave (which is frequently) I start to panic again. I count the bricks in the wall. I count the letters in the titles of the posters on the wall, but I can’t stop the panic, it’s overwhelming me. I pull out my keys and run one as hard as I can across one of the burns on my arm, enough to make it flow blood, but not so much blood that I can’t clean it up with the small squares of sandpaper that they call tissue in the hospital. It’s not enough. I pick up the receiver of the phone on the table and beat myself repeatedly on the occipital bone (the one I hit originally to get my shiner). Occasionally, my Therapist comes in, and every time she enters the door, I see this angel. I see my savior. I’m nearly at the end of my tether, emotionally and mentally exhausted by the time Dr. Quack enters my tiny white prison, followed by two students – this is a teaching hospital. Over the next 20 minutes he tears the pathetic brace I had built to hold myself together with his terrible words: I am a bad person for telling my husband about my sexual abuse because it’s so hard on him. I should never tell him what I’m going through, and if I don’t start up my sex life again, we are doomed. Self harm makes me unpretty, I need to use more socially accepted ways of dealing with things. I shouldn’t be thinking about my dad at all, just forgive him. He made a mistake, he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong, and I can’t forget, but I must forgive him and move on with my life. I mention a punching bag and he encourages me to use it to work off my fat. I’m in such shock, all I know to do is get him out of here. I tell him what he wants to hear so he’ll get the fuck out. I’m reeling, I’m about to fall, and this time I’m going to fall hard. And then my angel comes in. She can’t believe what Dr. Quack said. She cries with me as his repeated words tear from my throat amid sobs. And then she leads me gently back to myself, and I feel it, I know that she is the only one who can save me…

…I’m listening to sad songs by myself, and I even though I’ve been listening to this song for years, I finally get it. It’s as though it was written to help me:

Spend all your time waiting
for that second chance
for a break that would make it okay
there’s always one reason
to feel not good enough
and it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
oh beautiful release
memory seeps from my veins
let me be empty
and weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight

in the arms of an angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you’re in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort there

so tired of the straight line
and everywhere you turn
there’s vultures and thieves at your back
and the storm keeps on twisting
you keep on building the lie
that you make up for all that you lack
it don’t make no difference
escaping one last time
it’s easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

…It’s morning, I’m in bed. I’m caught in that place between sleep and consciousness. I can already feel the pain returning. Why won’t it ever stop? I can’t take it for much longer. It’s eating away at me, and someday there will be nothing left. I can see the back of my eyelids now and I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid that I’m going to wake up and live…

* Lyric Credits: Numb, Linkin Park & Angel, Sarah McLachlan, respectively.

Numbed

For the last few days, I’ve been in a drugged stupor, struggling just to make my body move and get through the day. The good thing is that this leaves a lot less time for me to focus on the fucked up thoughts floating around my brain. The drugs are like a blanket that covers my depression, anxiety, fears and phobias just enough for me to function. I look at myself in the mirror and all I see is a perfectly normal looking 24 year old, with flushed cheeks and punk hair and I don’t understand how I can look so normal when I’m so fucked up inside. But if you look deep into my eyes, past the slim layer of vacancy, you can see the turmoil that lies within.

My meds were upped again last week after I arrived to see my GP in dark clothes, hiding behind sunglasses, tears streaming out the bottom of them, shaking and clutching a small leather bag full of stones that were supposed to be giving me positive energy. When he left the room for a few minutes, he left the door of the room open and this intense fear washed over me like a wave and I panicked. I was sobbing, shaking and rocking in the corner when he came back and it took several minutes for me to calm down enough to even speak to him.

For me, there’s no more positive energy that can make me better until I get to the other side of the years of abuse. The things that used to always bring me out of a depression – my Husband’s arms wrapped tight around me, my Son’s baby giggles – they don’t penetrate anymore. Or maybe they do, and it’s just that I’ve left my body and fallen into this dark pit in my mind…so far down, and the only part of me getting this loving contact is the shell of who I used to be. I take my meds and I become this numb person who walks the world, head down and missing most of what is out there. I hate this feeling too, but for now, it’s a relief from the constant pain. The drugs take the edge off just enough to keep me from crying all the time. When it’s time to take my next dose, I know because I’m already starting to crash. The pain is already returning.

Before I went to see my Dr, before my meds were increased, I was stuck in this mental purgatory every night. I would lie on the carpet sobbing my heart out and self harming for hours after my Husband went to bed. I hurt so much, I wanted to overdose. Not to kill myself. Just enough to knock myself out for a couple of days so that never ending fucking pain would stop, just for a little while. But every time I thought of reaching for that bottle, I thought of my Son. I would pull up my favourite picture of him on the computer and stare at it and tell myself that if I fuck up that way, I’ll be hospitalized. I won’t be able to see my baby whenever I want, and that to me, would be worse than death. So I never took the pills. That didn’t erase the need to escape though.

Now I sit around, dopey, listening to songs about lost love by Sarah McLachlan and stoner music by Sublime. I read Prozac Nation and identify so much with the author that I feel like this time, I really am that far gone. I can identify with the deepest, darkest feelings of a woman who went through such hell, that her account of her struggles with depression became a national bestselling book. People don’t read books about people who are just sort of depressed. They want the raw, gut wrenching, gritty realness of it. The worst possible case. They try to understand, try to identify, but most people wouldn’t be able to. Like so many things in life, you can’t truly understand unless you’ve actually gone through it yourself. The last time I read it (when I went through my first depressive episode), I was overwhelmed by the brutal nature of the pain she was going through and I couldn’t identify. My ability now to identify so completely with her scares me.

Tomorrow I start psychotherapy with my therapist. Tomorrow we begin the plunge into my deep, dark, disturbing childhood. I’m glad to be dealing with it, but I know at the same time that things are only going to get worse before they get better. That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but don’t they understand that I’m already at worse? What comes after that? Can I make it through it? That incessant spirit that usually resides within me has been extinguished like a small lit candle in a windstorm by all the overwhelming pain, grief, guilt, and whatever other fucked up feelings I have every minute of every day. Deep down, I know that this is the hardest test of character I’ve ever had to and probably will ever have to face. I’m so scared. So alone. Stripped and naked in the dark, pathetically trying to beat back the black dogs of depression. But they’re coming for me. They’ve caught the sent of blood, and they’re coming. And I don’t know what to do to stop them.

Fear

I’m scared. For no reason and for every reason. I don’t understand. Yesterday the sun was shining…two blue jays fluttered past my window and as I looked out, a fresh breeze swept the sweet smell of freshly mown grass into the room and I was happy. It was the first time in forever since I smiled when I was by myself.

But now. It’s gone. Whatever sunny, happy, shiny feelings I had yesterday seem to be fading at an exponential rate. My arm bleeds. I’ve ravaged my wounds again, spread them all open in pain and grief. I’ve branded. I hate myself for it, but I hated myself before I did it too, so what does it matter?

My dad. I saw his picture today. I was going through some old boxes and there was this picture of my Mom and dad and their dog Charlie in a portrait. It surprised me, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him again. I was doing so well, not thinking of him, and now I’m stuck there again. I’ve been down this road. I thought I was past it, moved on and ready for the next challenge, but I find that my mind plays me like a house full of mirrors, until I don’t know which thoughts are real and which are only what could be.

I miss him. I worry about him. I still love him. And I deeply, deeply, deeply hate myself for that. I hate him for what he’s done to me, for what I have to go through now, and for what? I keep having this memory replay in my mind. I’m young and in trouble. My dad is sitting on a chair waiting for me. He tells me to come to him. To pull down my pants. To lie across his lap. Then he’s spanking me. Hitting me so hard that I cry out in pain. Eventually, I learn to stop crying. I bite my lip. But the fear is still deeply implanted…The whole ceremony of it. Sick. So why did I type in his name on facebook today just to see if he was still there? Why do I fucking care after what he did to me. It’s been long enough already, please, just let me go. Whatever it is that you have over me, please, just let that fade away to nothing.

I’m here again. Cold and alone with my thoughts and his ghost. Haunted. Hunted. I can never escape. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. I’m not brave enough. I’m not smart enough. How can anyone be expected to deal with this overload of emotional and psychological and physical damage at once and remain sane? I don’t believe in myself anymore. I feel like a failure. I haven’t been able to pull myself together after all this time. My family needs me, and I can’t help them. Never ending time unwinds and I remain a shell. A shell who looks like a person I used to be. It fools my loved ones, but when they are gone, in the long, dark loneliness of night, I feel it. All the pain the shell has bottled up inside. And it is killing me slowly, softly, subtly under the surface.

I couldn’t do it

I just branded my arm. I hate myself. I’m so weak. So fucking weak. Such a fucking failure. Why do I feel this way? Why did you do this to me dad? I loved you so much. I was daddy’s little girl, and you loved me in so many wrong ways. Why would you put that on me daddy? WHY? I just wanted to be a normal girl. I just wanted to fit in with everyone and I never did. I was missing something. I was missing my innocence. You took it from me, you stole it from me, with your honeyed tongue, and I believed every word of it because you loved me. And I loved you. I thought it was me. I thought it was my fault that you stopped. Why didn’t you explain it? Why did she hate me forever after that? Why didn’t you stop her from hurting me all those years. She tortured me! I fucking hate you. I fucking hate you more than I hate myself. I never want to see you again. I never want to talk to you again. You will never see my beautiful baby boy. You will never touch him again. He won’t even be at your funeral. You sick, twisted, pathetic excuse for a human being! I hate you so much for what you did! So why do I still love you?

If this is what making progress feels like, then my world is upside down.

* I feel I owe You a Warning: This post contains Self Injury details and Mature subject matter. Please don’t read it, if this would disturb you.

Today has been worse than yesterday. Although I haven’t felt in the least compelled to write all day, I’m forcing myself to DO SOMETHING. Good news: I didn’t SI last night. Not by choice though. With the dosage of Seroquil that I take at night, I have only about an hour before I’m falling asleep sitting, in the middle of typing, or playing a game, or doing a puzzle, or…self harming. Seriously, this drug knocks me right out. I wanted to self harm last night, but by the time I got to it, I could hardly keep my eyes open. As a result, I was a mess today, and M having an equally bad day only added fuel to the flames. I held off until early evening before I exploded. M and I had an argument, stomped away from each other. He went to the kitchen to crash and bang anything he could, I went to the bedroom, closed the door and headed straight for M’s late Father’s knife collection. The Bowie knife that started it all (the first tool I used to SI myself, but have not used since) came back into play. I’ll only say that it’s on my arm, next to all the burns. I don’t want to get into the severity of it. I was afraid to tell M, eventually did, it’s very noticeable. He said, “Oh, that’s not bad at all.” This is the worst thing he could have said to me at the moment. I had just expressed my pain and anguish and grief and confusion and anxiety as well as I could with an almost dull blade. And he made it sound as if it was nothing. I know he never meant anything by it. He was probably trying not to react to it to help me, but it didn’t matter at that point. The next chance I got, I was sobbing once more in the bedroom, pulling out the knife and bloody towel and cutting again and again and again, that stupid dull blade making me push so damn hard. Apparently I was meant to really work for this one. Really mean it. Lots of blood, I let it stream down my arm. I was faint, but that soon passed. Then I was cutting my stomach, but the dull blade only left a few scratches. I wept and wept, then I pulled it together, cleaned up, and went back out as if nothing had happened. M and I made up, I’m still a wreck, and he still gets angry the odd time, but we salvaged our night somewhat, while somehow cooperating to have a very fun play session with Munchkin. I would do anything for him, and I will not let him suffer because of things his father and I are going through. He is the most beautiful, sweet person I’ve ever met, and I will do everything to get better and to be a better Mom for him. God, please just let this constant anguish end. I know that somehow I’m making progress, but I feel as though I have been half trapped inside one of Dante’s circles of hell.

Make It Stop

*THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS DETAILED CONTENT ABOUT SELF INJURY.*

*PLEASE DO NOT READ IT IF THIS WOULD BOTHER YOU.*

I feel terrible right now. Not even provoked or triggered, just general, depression/anxiety terrible. My heart is pounding, I’m terrified and on the verge of tears. At the same time, I feel as though I can’t go on anymore and just want to give up for the day. But I can’t get myself to go to bed yet either. I’m restless. I’ve wanted to self harm all evening day and have held off so far, but I’m feeling so weak and tired right now. The pain just never ends. It’s like having constant pain for 8, 9, 10, 11, 12…hours. You’re almost insane with having to stand it for so long. Only there’s no pain pills for this. Sure, I take my antidepressants and my anti-anxiety meds, but they’re just enough to get me through the day. Without them, I’d be a quivering, blubbering mess, who never bathed nor left her room. I’d be a sham of a person, hollow and without hope. I know these pills help me, but sometimes they’re not quite enough. Sometimes the only way to get rid of this terrible pain is to create pain more immediate and more terrible. I choose to brand by lighter. It hurts like hell for about 10 seconds. I have to grit my teeth and squeeze something in the hand of the arm I’m burning. I don’t cry anymore. As the pain subsides, I let all my anxiety and internal pain subside with it. I feel much better mentally. I have much more control of my emotions. It’s wrong and it’s a temporary solution, but it’s one that I will continue to use until I no longer need it. I don’t enjoy it. I loathe it. On good days, I look down at my arm and I hate myself for the scars I’ve made. For the section of my arm missing, where I burned over and over with open flame, until the burn reached third degree. I stopped then, and helped it heal as well as I could. Sometimes my husband and I joke about it. The lighter brands make horseshoe-like scars and we joke that it looks as if a tiny horse went crazy on my arm. Sometimes I catch myself staring at my arm, I can’t tear my eyes from the wounds. It’s as though I can’t believe it, and I’m grieving for my arm. I know only too well though, that by the time you get to the point of Self Injuring yourself, you are well beyond caring about scars. Sure, have it in your head to keep it somewhere you can cover up, but you need the release. Your body needs it, your mind needs it, your soul needs it. If this helps me to get through the horror that is working through sexual abuse at the hands of my father, then I know that I won’t care some day down the road when I’m playing with my Son and I look down and see those scars. They are my battle wounds. I will carry them proudly because I will have beaten depression.

Bath Horror

Since remembering some specific things about my dad abusing me in and after the shower, I have been anxious and afraid, and unable to have a shower. No, don’t worry, I do bathe, but I use the tub or I wash in the sink. I had recently picked up a kind of special bath foam that my Mom used to use and allow me to use on special occasions. I thought this would encourage me to get back into the bath/shower mode. Last night, as a beautiful surprise, M ran me a wonderful bath with my special bath foam. I entered the bathroom alone, M was supposed to come sit and chat with me while I bathed, and said he’d be there in a few minutes.

Upon entering the bathroom and closing the door behind me, it seemed as though the place shrank around me. I panicked immediately and began ransacking the cupboards for anything sharp I could injure myself with. The best I could come up with was a dull pair of hair cutting scissors, which I opened and scraped one of the blades as hard as I could across my face. I don’t remember how many times I did this, but it left only scratches and didn’t even draw blood.

After this, I felt somewhat calmer and foolish about panicking about something as simple as a bath. I slowly got into the water bit by bit, and was doing ok. M was busy for a while longer and by the time he got into the bathroom, I was a huddled mess in the corner, sobbing and shaking. I had been having flashbacks of my showers with my dad and was in mid panic. M helped me get out of the bath, I was a shaking, blubbering mess. He wrapped a towel around me and began to dry me off, starting with my feet and calves. As he rose up to my upper thighs with the towel, I panicked. I screamed at him to stop and not to touch me.

I finished getting dressed, a mess, then M held me and I cried and cried onto his shoulder for what seemed like forever. A while later, after having calmed down a bit, I begged M to never let my dad near me again. He promised to keep me safe. We also decided what M will say if he calls again: “M does not want to talk to you, please don’t call here ever again.” then hang up.

I managed to get my anxiety over the experience down the to point where I only self harmed once. I’m very proud of that. After a horrible night full of fear and terror, I pulled through, and while I felt weak and lost and hopeless, I know that that was progress I just made, and it heartens me.

I Want To Be Free

My need for self harm today has been growing more and more. So far I’ve been successful in abstaining, but I don’t think I can anymore. I’ve been at my computer for what seems hours, just trying to distract myself from the pain I feel inside.

I’m a fairly logical person. When there is a problem, I teach myself how to fix it and do so. But it doesn’t matter how many books and articles I read this time. It doesn’t matter that I know the effects of an SNRI on the human brain or that medically, I know exactly what is wrong with me. My heart doesn’t care. That huge, gaping, seething hole in my chest doesn’t care either. It needs sacrifice. It needs pain. And I’m so tired. I can’t fight it anymore. I have to give in….

A Rock, A Hard Place & A Wedding

Yesterday was the day of the wedding that has been causing me so much anxiety this past week. Hubby had been looking forward to it for weeks, talking all about it with his relatives, and he was going to wear a suit for the first time since we’ve been together. I, on the other hand, was becoming more of a wreck with each day it grew nearer. The day before, I tried to tell hubby that I didn’t think I could do it because of my intense fear of crowds. There was to be about 200 people there, and I am in no condition to be able to handle that kind of thing right now. He maintained that we would go. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was petrified and spent time crying and rocking on the carpet and self harming. Among other things, I branded myself many times.

I felt stuck. I wanted so badly to go to the wedding for my husband, to support him as he’s been supporting me these last few weeks, that I was forcing myself to go. I knew in my heart that I couldn’t do it. God knows, I tried. I tried to gain control of myself over and over. Morning arrived, and with it, uncontrollable tremors, and still, my husband wanted to go. My parents arrived to babysit munchkin and were understandably concerned with my condition. I tried to talk to my husband, but I couldn’t force myself to ask him for what I needed: to stay at home. We made it down to the car before we figured out we weren’t going. Unfortunately, it took a lot of yelling and drama to get us to that realization.

After that, I began to relax. My parents stayed for the majority of the afternoon and I felt relaxed in their company. Last night I was able to get some sleep, although it was disturbed, despite my Seroquil.

After all the difficulties yesterday, I have finally realized that I am very sick right now. I have almost no control over my anxiety and my emotions. Over the night before the wedding and the morning of, I branded my arm a total of 12 times. I counted last night. I need more time to heal. I can’t expect so much of myself. I need to trust my family more. I need to stop trying to fix everything on my own and ask for help, because I have a wonderful group of people in my support group who would do anything to help me. It’s time I started to let down my guard and let them.

To those people: I’m sorry I have been distant. I’m sorry I have been wary of trusting. I am very vulnerable right now, and I find it extremely hard to open up for fear of getting hurt. My natural instinct, the way I lived my childhood, is to put up walls. I have to fight this every day. Every hour. Every minute. But while I may lose some battles, I am ultimately winning the war. Please be patient with me.

The Lizard and the Eagle

During one of my many smaller depressive episodes, a wise woman sat on the edge of my bed and told me a story of a Lizard and an Eagle. The Lizard was lazy, waiting around on his rock all day, bathing in the sun, waiting for his prey to come to him. The Eagle was hunting all day, feeling the freedom of the wind on his wings, and seeking out for himself that which he wanted. She told me that though I was down then, and I was the Lizard, one day again soon, I would be the Eagle, and I would soar and achieve my goals.

Since that day, I have become the Eagle. I have achieved more in my short lifetime than some achieve at all. But the Eagle has enemies. I’ve been caught by mine, and as I fight to escape their clutches, I lose more and more of my heart, more and more of my spirit, until I am once again the Lizard, waiting.

The other day I was in a convenience store, and saw a small black lighter. A different brand than the usual kinds you see. There were many designs, but the first one to catch my eye was one with a lizard on it. I purchased it for those times when I can’t be the Eagle. I can’t soar above it all. I can only fight as hard as I can each day, and wait. And when I am weak, and I need to resort to shame and torture to beat back my grief and pain, I will use that lighter and take comfort that the Lizard is a wily creature, a tough creature, a creature who survives.