I know I've been away awhile. I can't tell you the last time I had a conversation with anyone, save some everyday chitchat and a session with therapist. I oft forget the fine art of verbal conversing when I've gone so long without. I think I've grown use to my reticence. I have little need for talk. Ahh, yes, I have enjoyed a few hours long talks with my imprisoned Eldest! We have conversations like no other. We hold hands, read each others eyes and gesture wildly about our ideals. He returns next month and I look forward to having someone to go places with and share projects, walks and insights.
Things went smoothly for awhile, weeks really. Recently I ran into a memory, a horrid flashback that has devastated and set me back. It's a troubling memory that causes me to question....whether I can ever fully reveal it, the implications and it's strong emotional component. I have dealt with dozens of flashbacks, but never one of this magnitude. I just don't know.
I spend most days hiding from it, the horrid memory, avoiding triggers and curled in a ball under heavy covers as if I've been punched. I double over with ferocity and struggle to be functional. I work at installing, reinstalling protective invisible walls and containment fields. Lord knows its a troubling time and I'm not sure I can progress. It is what it is. Like always, I will do my best.
There seems to be endless work being a mom, these days. Both boys compete for my energy and attention, through no fault of their own. My partner has concerns of her own and I've been feeling quite like a single mum.
My head is a full house. It's probably good to start writing again and releasing some of the tension of pent up words and thought.
It's strange...the transition from being in the present and flashback free to being engulfed in a painful memory and running, hiding, barricading and being consumed with appearing and maintaining functionality. It's two completely different worlds, really.
I question...I seriously doubt, that I will ever be a fully functional member of society...rather, I may always be that quiet, non-working, no paycheck, introverted woman who rarely leaves the house and never engages in social conventions person...you know, one of the invisible ones.
When you cannot work, as I've alluded to in previous writings...when you must rely on someone else, or even the government for your every morsel of bread...it's beyond dehumanizing, in my book. Fault me if you will, but I very much enjoyed it, the sparse opportunities I had where I had a job and a paycheck...when people asked me my occupation and I didn't have to answer "I'm an autistic incest survivor with PTSD, who deals with sexual abuse flashbacks on an unpredictable basis, chronic insomnia and anxiety from fear I may be hit or smacked or slapped by the next person that walks by me."
Sexual abuse is dehumanizing as is it's ongoing repercussions. Yeah, I live with my fathers scars and sometimes they open and bleed.
How can I measure my own worthy? With how much I accomplish in the personal confines of the theraputic setting? Is every memory spoken and flashback relived and dealt with a gold star? For who to see? Do you get paid per star?
It seems pointless, at times. I take a step, fall in the mud and stand up just to spin my own wheels. Ahhh, that could be the visual image of the day....me, face down in the mud. I stand and slip and fall again, and again, over and over and over.
I live in my own prison. Funny, I didn't create it, but I'm in charge of finding a way out.
I've oft thought that people make their own paths and hardships through their own actions or inactions or choices....What choice did I ever have? Have I not fought fiercely and courageously to heal and improve? How many hours, days, weeks, years must I be thusly employed in the art of working to release these chains and heal these wounds? Pains and sorrows I never, ever, ever asked for or would wish upon myself or any other innocent child.
I know of suffering, goddamnit. God, I know suffering inside, outside and through and through. And god, I just want it to stop. And I can't wish and hope it away, No, I crawl in the sewers and backwaters of my mind, rooting out the toxic memories of the criminally insane acts. In the muck, I pull out the most hideous of beasties, gnarly and squealing, screaming to stay in and with both hands and all my might, my shoulders aching, I shove them out into the light. I name them and identify and pull them apart to find the hidden parts of me that died in those dark incidents. See, that's the thing, I can't just forget or deny or throw and quash the memories into oblivion because each and everyone of them contains a little part of me...an emotion, a thought pattern, the innocence, the pain, the laughter, the tear...They are all Mine!
Enough
I say Enough...but it matters not. I don't enjoy, by any means, the feeling of helplessness, but my god, it has been a constant, annoying companion.
This is enough writing for now.
I've missed you.
I hope you are well.
