(no subject)
Painful yet bored of self.
I start to wonder when life became so so tough and scarily unpredictable.
I remember things being tough when I was a kid, very isolated, always on edge, on the look-out making sure I wasn't caught for doing anything other than a saintly working hard perfect act.
I remember being 6 years old and being scared stiff of my Dad who would shout and shout and shout, and dissolve me to tears for not trying, for hurting him and my Mum, for all these things he told me. And I was forced to endure the shouting, I wasn't allowed to leave, to walk away, I was made to sit there, and I could feel myself numbing out because every word and every shout was another painful dart being driven in again to the already broken heart. If it wasn't direct shouting then it was the look, which said you will be in such big big big trouble later on. Cue me frantically racking my brain to understand what it was I did wrong? what shouldn't I have done? what is he going to shout at me for? It was always all my fault, I never did anything right, I never tried hard enough, I was ridiculed for crying, I was punished for being me, so I stopped being. The shame of being. The shame of existing.
Then around the age of 15, I found cigarettes, sugar, and general food control. I found anger too. I found anger and a force to shout back. But I still didn't really exist, just the opposite defence mechanism of the fear, which never expressed all that I needed to express, but at least gave some sort of defence mechanism to shield some pain.
Now 18 years on I'm still struggling. I've cut down all the substance addictions, but in so doing, yet again created a stringent regime of no-sugar, no-pleasure foods, with good intent, although this always ends up feeling like I'm depriving myself yet again, rather than being kind to myself. And I spend so many of my days trying to be a good parent to myself, trying to understand what it is I need to give myself - food, exercise, rest.. it's exhausting. And I try my best to focus on calm, to slow down, to really be patient with myself and understand what it is that I'm feeling, therefore what I need. But so often, I can't feel all of my body and I'm riddled with fear that I'm doing something wrong, or I don't exist. And I know it's an illusion that I've created from the experience with my Dad, but it's as scary as hell to be guessing what to do day to day because you can't feel anything other than raw vunerable 6 year old or infant defenceless incapability, so the alternative seems to be to drift off up into your head analysing searching for the best thing to give yourself.
And I approach my life from so many different angles.
Focusing on calm, and visualising myself as the parent taking inner child me gentle by the hand and leading her through life... being the vunerable child and visualising those that I could see as potentially nurturing me... visualising grounding cords, breathing slowly.... so many things, but it's so tiring..
And to try to be your true self with other people around you, when that true self feels like a scared vunerable 6 year old, incapable of doing anything adult-like, seems crazy. I feel like a lost puppy, just so wanting a mother to hug me and tell me it's all okay, and I am okay, and then all the things I was worrying about would melt away and it wouldn't matter anymore, because in that moment I was held and I was safe.
And I also see this from another mental angle in that the whole pain of what I felt was because I made up a story of how I was at fault when my Dad shouted at me all those years ago. I created the story of how it was my fault, and I believed the story of it being my fault too. But do I believe that now? I know it's not true, so why do I still hang on to it like it is the way it is? Why do I punish myself for things that I know are false? Why do I listen to the voice in my head that likes to linger around and embed itself into my psyche? Why do I listen? What if I didn't listen? What if I heard but just found it interesting? Would I not know how to be or what to do?
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Arrrghh.. and on a side note I just demolished lots of cherry pie. I could conclude all of what it will do for me on a negative tangent but fuck it. What's the big deal? For now..