Dysfunction Junction

I sat in the bath the other day and looked at my wrists.  You remember those wrists don't you?  I've stared at them before.

The puncture marks are invisible to anyone but me.  And then I thought about THE BIG MOTHER ONE on my head.  And then I thought about the ones that are just faded memories.

Some of them evoke days where not much else mattered.  The one on my elbow from when a boy was chasing me around my house.  Before the parents split.  When I'd only known one other house.

As I'm embarking on this journey to unpack all my mental shit, I think about all those other scars.  The ones that I can't even see, but feel as clear as day.

Scars that pock mark my defenses.  I am over-fortified in some places.  With bricks and scar tissue several layers deep.  Defenses so honed over the years, I'm not even sure how to attack them.  I've got layers and layers of beliefs & emotions that I'm not sure I'll ever fully be rid of.

But what about the wobbly parts?  The parts that I purposely dismantled and then haphazardly threw back up?  What do I do with what seeps through?  The things that despite all the scars and pain and fear somehow survives and thrives?  I'm so tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater and clear the decks.  But there must be reasons for things, right?

There must be a reason for things to happen.  I don't mean some bullshit of a destiny & God.  My sincerest apologies to my readers who have amazing faith and believe in a God.  I've just seen too much lately & I refuse to believe that ANYONE would let people suffer like that.  But I digress.

Is there a purpose?  Is there a reason that these wee little single-celled organisms manage to make me smile these days?  If so, what the fuck is the Universe trying to tell me?  Why now?

Why bring stuff into my life when it would likely be better for me to be isolated and cut off?  What's the purpose?  I vacillate between wanting to push things out and wall myself up and clutching to things for fear that when they go away I'd never recover.

And to end this way too abruptly, that's where I am right now.  Struggling to manage my sanity and keep close the things & people that matter to me.  That, or push everyone away and just go forward on my own.

My sincerest apologies to Kings of Leon, from who I normally borrow their lyrics for post titles.  In this instance, they just wouldn't do the trick.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I stared at my fingertips for 10 minutes, just willing them to type these words.  I've been really open in this "space" despite my inclination towards non-openness.  To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure I can say everything.

There are things that I've felt, things I've thought for upwards of a decade now.  As of yesterday, the only person who knew these things and the havoc they wreak was my mother.  She's suffered a lot on my behalf and I don't know if I'll ever be able to really thank her.

I've kept things from friends, family, and even psychiatrists & psychologists.  I won't talk about these things because, well, I just won't.  I can't.  These thoughts and feelings are so ingrained, they're like the plasma in my hemoglobin.

I don't say these things to be mysterious or to toy with you.  But I've been absent in many ways, and I felt like I needed to say why.

My first step I took today was one foot onto a very slippery slope.  I am back on anti-depressants.  And for the first time, I wasn't ashamed to take the prescription slip.  I can't kid myself anymore.  There is just no way in hell I will have the strength to do what I need to do without them.

This starts a path of REALLY AND FOR ONCE examining the squiggly, undefined, fuzzy emotions that are the undercurrent of these things.  I know no other way to think, but I know that I can't continue with that.

I'm sorry to be so vague, but I'm not ready for people to know this side of me.

Hey everybody, remember me?  I'm the weird girl who writes this drivel.  Right?  Yeah, you remember me.

I've never been good with segways, so let's just jump right in, shall we?

So, the job is still good.  Challenging and I still worry that I really have no idea what I'm doing and eventually someone will figure it out.

And yes, I'm still happy.  But I gotta be honest with you.  I haven't entirely recovered from my surgery.  My scar is fine, and I'm physically healthy.  My brain (the thought part at least) isn't.  I've had this low-lying hum, a dull throb in the background and I've been trying to outrun it.

I won't bore you with the psychological stuff, but sort of a long story short, I'm suffering from a minor form of PTSD.  Turns out so is The Moms (and likely The Pops, but he lives on the riverbanks of Denial).

You say, "PTSD??  Only people who go to war suffer from that."  And yes, they do.  In excruciatingly acute forms of it.  I'm not pretending mine is even close to that, so please don't tell me how dare I.

Truth is, no matter how much I want to move on, my emotions/psychology/whatever is having no part of it.  And I guess maybe some of that I need to just embrace and let it in.  Truth is, I haven't dealt with the truly terrifying prospect of facing my own death.

While I will admit I never feared that the tumor would kill me, I really did think I might die.  I considered the fact that something in surgery could go horribly awry and I could leave this earth.  I wish I could put into words how it feels to worry (legitimately) that you're going to die, but I can't.

That's the problem.

I've got all of these things and I can't bring them to the surface.  I can't just say them, have a cathartic cry and move on.  My brain won't let me.  I don't really know how to work on this.  I'm just trying to avoid the "persistent avoidance and emotional numbing". 

I don't know how well I'm succeeding.