LJ Idol Week 4
Oooohhh... Stace - what about the elephant in the room when you are by yourself?!?!?
We all avoid our own shit until we can't ignore it.
Indeed we do. Thanks, L.
* * * * *
For this season of LJ Idol, I’m playing two truths and a lie. Two of the three stories below are true.
* * * * *
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2
I blinked through my tears and a fat drop splashed onto the page, leaving behind the smoke-colored residue of salt and mascara.
I was supposed to be a new creation, a person transformed - and nothing changed. Being a Christian child had been so effortless - you said your prayers and you followed the rules. Becoming a teenager was so different. I had whole new layers of things to worry about, thoughts to police as well as actions, and tougher patterns to break.
And it hurt because my fervor hadn’t died - in fact, it had only grown stronger. I knew in my gut that my father had gone to heaven, and the thought of ending up in a different afterlife than his was more terrible than the idea of fire and brimstone, sadder and lonelier than the concept of an existence that ended in a pine box.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
I knew I couldn’t live by his example. I knew that every day would be a struggle I would lose, an exercise in guilt, loathing, and self-flagellation. I imagined that even if I made it to heaven, I would shuffle through the pearly gates with my eyes downcast, a list of each day’s sins trailing along the ground behind me for my father and all the saints to see.
Because that’s what nobody in the Christian faith talks about. No matter how reformed you are, how many years you’ve kept the faith with a true heart, you are still, at your core, as base and “lost” as any other. And your first instinct will still be wrong, no matter how carefully you school your habits into submission.
And what do you do when you believe in the truth of the message with all your heart, but you find yourself utterly incapable of living it?
Fifteen years old and stone cold sober, I prayed that God would take me away, right then. If I could just tap out of this life, an obstacle course I couldn’t run without falling, I could go straight to heaven and be with my daddy. I could stop myself from the inevitable new sins, the cycle of guilt and new failure.
Still sniffling, I placed my Bible and notebook on the nightstand and turned out the light. Lying down, I took several deep breaths to quiet my thoughts.
After a small eternity, I began to drift in that warm void between waking and sleeping. I sank deeper into the mattress and my pillow, and deeper into my body, as though my spirit, too, was dozing somewhere along my spine, and even my conscious mind had decided to give it a rest.
The feeling was subtle at first, a light tingling inside my forehead. Then it spread like wildfire down my body, a rising from within, as if helium balloons had been released inside me, and they now hovered just below the surface, ready to float away.
As if I were about to float away.
I bolted upright in bed with a shriek, gulping air into my lungs. My heart thudded in my chest, and I felt the pulsing in my ears. I stared into the dark, panting, looking for some kind of sign. The hovering feeling had vanished, and I was grounded, aware, shaken, and utterly alive.
I still wonder sometimes what would’ve happened if I had just lain still.
* * * * *
Even in Los Angeles, there are a few places you can go to see a real night sky.
So I found myself in the backseat of Jaron’s teal Altima, cruising down PCH late one Sunday night on the way to Malibu. He and Conor spoke softly to one another in front as I rolled down the window, dangling my arm to catch the cool night breeze. I sighed contentedly as Conor twisted in his seat, passing back a bowl with a blue Bic lighter.
We pulled into the empty parking lot and hopped out of the car. Gritty sand crunched beneath my sneakers, but I kept them on, picking my way carefully around rocks and bits of driftwood in the sand. The moon was nearly full and sat low over the horizon, giving a soft gray-green glow to the sea and sky alike. The ocean was calm, with tiny ripples washing along the shore.
Conor pulled Jaron close, and with a rueful grin, I spun on my heel and wandered off down the beach. I shuffled along slowly, head tilted back as I searched for the constellations I had learned so long ago.
Spotting Orion, my gaze traveled left and down to Canis Major. A twinkle of blue stopped me.
Sirius is the brightest star in our sky because of its luminosity and its proximity to earth. Its ethereal blue light seemed to dance in my vision, and I froze, transfixed. I imagined that heaven rested somewhere beyond that star, and that my father must be within reach.
I found myself crying and babbling, caught red-handed and confronted with my own failings in this unexpected first audience with my father, three years after his death.
Stoned out of my gourd, and I was talking to a star.
When Conor and Jaron came to find me, I refused to explain myself, and they agreed to take me back to the dorms. The long drive home sobered me considerably, but the internal litany of regret never slowed.
Returning to my room, I changed into pajamas in the dark, scooped up my laptop, and left my sleeping roommate in peace. Settling in at a picnic table in the hallway, I began to write a painfully literal allegory about my life as a terrible daughter. I worked from midnight to 6:00am, feverishly scribbling my truth in a way I had never dared.
Daddy! Daddy goddammit I didn’t mean to I never meant to disobey you and hurt you I love you so much and it was an accident daddy. I hate myself so much and I wish I could die. I hope that you don’t see me now because I know that it would make you cry and I loved you so much daddy that I would do anything to please you, I never meant to become what I am… I never meant to betray you and god and everyone else, to walk away from all the wonderful things you taught me, from everything we believed together but I did daddy and I’m so so sorry… I’m so dirty, daddy, I know it, I look at my beautiful clothes and I see rags, I wish that someone could beat me until I was purged of this filth daddy… I’m so sorry daddy that I wanted you to die… I didn’t mean it daddy I was just so tired.. so tired of everything being so difficult with you alive and so sick and maybe if I had just prayed once and asked god to save you he would’ve and I wouldn’t be so fucking guilty right now of your death daddy… I know it wasn’t my fault but it WAS, daddy, it WAS because I never prayed for you to be healed… I just watched you suffer and I couldn’t even learn from your example daddy, I wanted to be just like you and instead I am your motherfucking antithesis, my heart aches whenever I let it and I just want to curl up and die somewhere where I’ll never be found because then I’ll be safe. Safe, daddy. Safe from you and from mommy and from judgment day and from god and from my own bitter memories of all the evil that I’ve done….safe from all the people I’ve grievously hurt in this lifetime and safe from myself and my corruption… I hurt inside, daddy, whenever I’m still and only the angry voices inside me can speak… daddy I’m so sorry I’m so sorry…
There was the truth, plain as day, and I knew she wasn’t meant to live. I killed off my alter ego with a cocaine overdose, but her dying hallucination was of being covered in open sores and scourged until she collapsed. Some sort of bizarre redemption through condemnation, a hope that if I just suffered enough, I would be forgiven.
* * * * *
“We come into NA, we make friends, and we get tools. We develop ways of coping with our addiction, our obsessive thoughts, our character defects. And we use all of these things.
“But someday, it’s gonna be crisis time at three in the morning, and it’s just you and your God. And you’d better figure out right now if your Higher Power is enough when that time comes.” ~ Lisa
Crisis time had come, and my God wasn’t enough.
All the tools in the world didn’t matter, because I was fresh outta cope, and I couldn’t or wouldn’t use them. Sometimes when you’re an addict, you’re just this seething ball of obsession and rage, riding a demented merry-go-round of negative thinking and compulsion. And you laugh like the mad hatter, laugh because you know you’ve lost it and nobody can save you, and you’re the only one who knows right now, and it’s better to laugh, because who wants to cry?
But you do cry, because you’re lost, because for all of the good you’ve done, you’re still a hopeless mess who doesn’t know how to live life normally, who has to struggle for the basic behaviors that come naturally to others.
Because you’ve gone from the sensory deprivation of constant drug use to a harsh, bright world where every little emotion is like a shriek in your ear, and there’s no way for you to get distance from it all. You aren’t allowed even the smallest respite, and you’re fully present in every. Fucking. Moment. And you think that you could fly out of your skin, right now, in every direction, just dissolving and retreating into the wind.
My God wasn’t enough, and I was sitting on my hands. Desperate to take action, to change the parameters of my world and my situation, just enough that I could ease the pressure. I was just desperate enough to take a flying leap from the carousel, and my landing be damned.
I didn’t even want to feel nothing. I just wanted to feel something else.
My eyes strayed to the bottle of Smirnoff on the table. I cringed, hearing Mikee’s snoring in the other room. I wondered what was worse - the merry-go-round of maddening obsession, or the endless loop of failure, loathing, and contrition. I wondered if I could disappoint him and still stand my ground, or if I would leave the way I always had before.
Jumping up, I strode into the kitchen and flicked on the overhead light. Grabbing the silverware drawer, I fished out a steak knife, its blade gleaming beneath the harsh fluorescence. I closed my fist around the handle and raised it to eye level, admiring its menacing serrated edges. Wondering what I was about to do.
I carried it back to the living room and plopped onto the couch, testing the edge with my thumb. Just holding it made my blood quicken, the tension of anticipation and fear I had always felt right before trying a new drug. The dice spinning in my head as I wondered if this would be very good, or very bad.
I planted my bare foot on the coffee table and lifted the knife high. Gritting my teeth, I brought it down in clumsy slash, slicing open my right calf.
Jumping, I dropped the knife as I sucked air in sharply through my teeth. Leaning over, I examined my handiwork with wonder. The gash was about an inch and a half long, and shallow. A fat red drop oozed from the very bottom of the cut, but it was otherwise unimpressive. It seemed like I should have had more to show for what I’d just done.
It stung like hell, but I felt oddly elated. I had redirected my brain without getting loaded. I had taken a decisive action, and even if it wasn’t a good one, I had changed my circumstances, and I would get through this night.
The next morning brought its own merry-go-round of obsessive thoughts and feelings, as I considered the implications of the night before. I might not have gotten loaded, but I had deliberately harmed myself, and not even for the pleasure of a high - just to feel the pain, as a distraction. And that brought with it its own shame, and the fear of what other dark avenues lurked in that direction, and where I might follow them if my impulses went unchecked.
So I went in search of a God who would be enough for even that.
* * * * *
Poll
You can go here to learn the truth.
therealljidol topic 4: the elephant in the room
We all avoid our own shit until we can't ignore it.
Indeed we do. Thanks, L.
* * * * *
For this season of LJ Idol, I’m playing two truths and a lie. Two of the three stories below are true.
* * * * *
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2
I blinked through my tears and a fat drop splashed onto the page, leaving behind the smoke-colored residue of salt and mascara.
I was supposed to be a new creation, a person transformed - and nothing changed. Being a Christian child had been so effortless - you said your prayers and you followed the rules. Becoming a teenager was so different. I had whole new layers of things to worry about, thoughts to police as well as actions, and tougher patterns to break.
And it hurt because my fervor hadn’t died - in fact, it had only grown stronger. I knew in my gut that my father had gone to heaven, and the thought of ending up in a different afterlife than his was more terrible than the idea of fire and brimstone, sadder and lonelier than the concept of an existence that ended in a pine box.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
I knew I couldn’t live by his example. I knew that every day would be a struggle I would lose, an exercise in guilt, loathing, and self-flagellation. I imagined that even if I made it to heaven, I would shuffle through the pearly gates with my eyes downcast, a list of each day’s sins trailing along the ground behind me for my father and all the saints to see.
Because that’s what nobody in the Christian faith talks about. No matter how reformed you are, how many years you’ve kept the faith with a true heart, you are still, at your core, as base and “lost” as any other. And your first instinct will still be wrong, no matter how carefully you school your habits into submission.
And what do you do when you believe in the truth of the message with all your heart, but you find yourself utterly incapable of living it?
Fifteen years old and stone cold sober, I prayed that God would take me away, right then. If I could just tap out of this life, an obstacle course I couldn’t run without falling, I could go straight to heaven and be with my daddy. I could stop myself from the inevitable new sins, the cycle of guilt and new failure.
Still sniffling, I placed my Bible and notebook on the nightstand and turned out the light. Lying down, I took several deep breaths to quiet my thoughts.
After a small eternity, I began to drift in that warm void between waking and sleeping. I sank deeper into the mattress and my pillow, and deeper into my body, as though my spirit, too, was dozing somewhere along my spine, and even my conscious mind had decided to give it a rest.
The feeling was subtle at first, a light tingling inside my forehead. Then it spread like wildfire down my body, a rising from within, as if helium balloons had been released inside me, and they now hovered just below the surface, ready to float away.
As if I were about to float away.
I bolted upright in bed with a shriek, gulping air into my lungs. My heart thudded in my chest, and I felt the pulsing in my ears. I stared into the dark, panting, looking for some kind of sign. The hovering feeling had vanished, and I was grounded, aware, shaken, and utterly alive.
I still wonder sometimes what would’ve happened if I had just lain still.
* * * * *
Even in Los Angeles, there are a few places you can go to see a real night sky.
So I found myself in the backseat of Jaron’s teal Altima, cruising down PCH late one Sunday night on the way to Malibu. He and Conor spoke softly to one another in front as I rolled down the window, dangling my arm to catch the cool night breeze. I sighed contentedly as Conor twisted in his seat, passing back a bowl with a blue Bic lighter.
We pulled into the empty parking lot and hopped out of the car. Gritty sand crunched beneath my sneakers, but I kept them on, picking my way carefully around rocks and bits of driftwood in the sand. The moon was nearly full and sat low over the horizon, giving a soft gray-green glow to the sea and sky alike. The ocean was calm, with tiny ripples washing along the shore.
Conor pulled Jaron close, and with a rueful grin, I spun on my heel and wandered off down the beach. I shuffled along slowly, head tilted back as I searched for the constellations I had learned so long ago.
Spotting Orion, my gaze traveled left and down to Canis Major. A twinkle of blue stopped me.
Sirius is the brightest star in our sky because of its luminosity and its proximity to earth. Its ethereal blue light seemed to dance in my vision, and I froze, transfixed. I imagined that heaven rested somewhere beyond that star, and that my father must be within reach.
I found myself crying and babbling, caught red-handed and confronted with my own failings in this unexpected first audience with my father, three years after his death.
Stoned out of my gourd, and I was talking to a star.
When Conor and Jaron came to find me, I refused to explain myself, and they agreed to take me back to the dorms. The long drive home sobered me considerably, but the internal litany of regret never slowed.
Returning to my room, I changed into pajamas in the dark, scooped up my laptop, and left my sleeping roommate in peace. Settling in at a picnic table in the hallway, I began to write a painfully literal allegory about my life as a terrible daughter. I worked from midnight to 6:00am, feverishly scribbling my truth in a way I had never dared.
Daddy! Daddy goddammit I didn’t mean to I never meant to disobey you and hurt you I love you so much and it was an accident daddy. I hate myself so much and I wish I could die. I hope that you don’t see me now because I know that it would make you cry and I loved you so much daddy that I would do anything to please you, I never meant to become what I am… I never meant to betray you and god and everyone else, to walk away from all the wonderful things you taught me, from everything we believed together but I did daddy and I’m so so sorry… I’m so dirty, daddy, I know it, I look at my beautiful clothes and I see rags, I wish that someone could beat me until I was purged of this filth daddy… I’m so sorry daddy that I wanted you to die… I didn’t mean it daddy I was just so tired.. so tired of everything being so difficult with you alive and so sick and maybe if I had just prayed once and asked god to save you he would’ve and I wouldn’t be so fucking guilty right now of your death daddy… I know it wasn’t my fault but it WAS, daddy, it WAS because I never prayed for you to be healed… I just watched you suffer and I couldn’t even learn from your example daddy, I wanted to be just like you and instead I am your motherfucking antithesis, my heart aches whenever I let it and I just want to curl up and die somewhere where I’ll never be found because then I’ll be safe. Safe, daddy. Safe from you and from mommy and from judgment day and from god and from my own bitter memories of all the evil that I’ve done….safe from all the people I’ve grievously hurt in this lifetime and safe from myself and my corruption… I hurt inside, daddy, whenever I’m still and only the angry voices inside me can speak… daddy I’m so sorry I’m so sorry…
There was the truth, plain as day, and I knew she wasn’t meant to live. I killed off my alter ego with a cocaine overdose, but her dying hallucination was of being covered in open sores and scourged until she collapsed. Some sort of bizarre redemption through condemnation, a hope that if I just suffered enough, I would be forgiven.
* * * * *
“We come into NA, we make friends, and we get tools. We develop ways of coping with our addiction, our obsessive thoughts, our character defects. And we use all of these things.
“But someday, it’s gonna be crisis time at three in the morning, and it’s just you and your God. And you’d better figure out right now if your Higher Power is enough when that time comes.” ~ Lisa
Crisis time had come, and my God wasn’t enough.
All the tools in the world didn’t matter, because I was fresh outta cope, and I couldn’t or wouldn’t use them. Sometimes when you’re an addict, you’re just this seething ball of obsession and rage, riding a demented merry-go-round of negative thinking and compulsion. And you laugh like the mad hatter, laugh because you know you’ve lost it and nobody can save you, and you’re the only one who knows right now, and it’s better to laugh, because who wants to cry?
But you do cry, because you’re lost, because for all of the good you’ve done, you’re still a hopeless mess who doesn’t know how to live life normally, who has to struggle for the basic behaviors that come naturally to others.
Because you’ve gone from the sensory deprivation of constant drug use to a harsh, bright world where every little emotion is like a shriek in your ear, and there’s no way for you to get distance from it all. You aren’t allowed even the smallest respite, and you’re fully present in every. Fucking. Moment. And you think that you could fly out of your skin, right now, in every direction, just dissolving and retreating into the wind.
My God wasn’t enough, and I was sitting on my hands. Desperate to take action, to change the parameters of my world and my situation, just enough that I could ease the pressure. I was just desperate enough to take a flying leap from the carousel, and my landing be damned.
I didn’t even want to feel nothing. I just wanted to feel something else.
My eyes strayed to the bottle of Smirnoff on the table. I cringed, hearing Mikee’s snoring in the other room. I wondered what was worse - the merry-go-round of maddening obsession, or the endless loop of failure, loathing, and contrition. I wondered if I could disappoint him and still stand my ground, or if I would leave the way I always had before.
Jumping up, I strode into the kitchen and flicked on the overhead light. Grabbing the silverware drawer, I fished out a steak knife, its blade gleaming beneath the harsh fluorescence. I closed my fist around the handle and raised it to eye level, admiring its menacing serrated edges. Wondering what I was about to do.
I carried it back to the living room and plopped onto the couch, testing the edge with my thumb. Just holding it made my blood quicken, the tension of anticipation and fear I had always felt right before trying a new drug. The dice spinning in my head as I wondered if this would be very good, or very bad.
I planted my bare foot on the coffee table and lifted the knife high. Gritting my teeth, I brought it down in clumsy slash, slicing open my right calf.
Jumping, I dropped the knife as I sucked air in sharply through my teeth. Leaning over, I examined my handiwork with wonder. The gash was about an inch and a half long, and shallow. A fat red drop oozed from the very bottom of the cut, but it was otherwise unimpressive. It seemed like I should have had more to show for what I’d just done.
It stung like hell, but I felt oddly elated. I had redirected my brain without getting loaded. I had taken a decisive action, and even if it wasn’t a good one, I had changed my circumstances, and I would get through this night.
The next morning brought its own merry-go-round of obsessive thoughts and feelings, as I considered the implications of the night before. I might not have gotten loaded, but I had deliberately harmed myself, and not even for the pleasure of a high - just to feel the pain, as a distraction. And that brought with it its own shame, and the fear of what other dark avenues lurked in that direction, and where I might follow them if my impulses went unchecked.
So I went in search of a God who would be enough for even that.
* * * * *
Poll
You can go here to learn the truth.
therealljidol topic 4: the elephant in the room