Wanting To Die

This isn’t about suicide per se,  but I remember times growing up when something had triggered a complete emotional breakdown and I would be in my bedroom,  face down on the bed sobbing into a pillow.    I had to hide my tears.   I knew from experience that crying was not met with empathy or compassion but rather, with aggression.   So I cried alone.    And crying alone,  trying to not be discovered,  made it worse and more painful.  Sobbing those uncontrollable tears that come from the gut  … from the very core of your being.   The kind of sobbing that leaves you physically weak.    It’s an actual pain.  You feel in it your chest.  It’s not like heart pain.   It’s something else  from deep inside .   It’s hard to explain.    It feels like your very soul is being torn out of your body from sobbing so violently.   And I can remember lying on my bed crying and saying to God,  “I want to die,  please just let me die”.   

 

Awful Thoughts

I’ve never been one to keep a diary.   In fact, this blog is the closest I’ve come to journaling.   But I remember keeping a note book of thoughts for a short time.  Perhaps it was a diary of sorts,  but it was a school note book.   We used to make covers for our school books out of brown bag paper and wrapping paper.   I remember this note book as if I were holding in my hand now.   The cover was yellow and purple diamond shapes.  I really don’t remember much about what  I wrote or for how many entries there were.   There might have only been the one.   But what I remember is finding that note book a few years later , after having hidden it away and forgetting about its existence & seeing that I had written,  in regard to my mother,  “I hate her!”     It was probably in response to a specific incident but I don’t know now what that would have been.   All I remember is feeling terrible and guilty for having thought,  and written down,  that I hated my mother.    I had written about how horrible she was to me and how much I hated her.    And the guilt consumed me.   And shame.   I destroyed the book so that no one would ever know that I had thought such awful thoughts.

When you write your feelings as you feel them,  when they are raw and uncensored,  it’s hard to go back later and read them.   Sometimes it’s because they are embarrassing, even to oneself.    Sometimes it’s because they trigger guilt and shame.   Sometimes it’s because you think you were stupid and naive.     They trigger all those core beliefs , and along with them,  the temptation to erase the written words just as I had destroyed that note book.   When you grow up learning that emotions are bad, that emotions get you in trouble,  the temptation to quash them is very strong.   There’s a panic that tells you to hide them so that no one knows how horrible you are,  or how stupid you are,   or ……….

Even when I look back at this blog an read my words I often have to resist the urge to expunge them.    Some of my experiences make me feel stupid and like if anyone reads how stupid I was they’ll belittle me.    Some of my experiences are embarrassing and difficult to get out of my head and onto the page.  And once on the page,  they’re  “out”.   All the things that I’ve spent a lifetime trying to hide,  to forget,  to ignore.   All the things that I’ve not wanted people to know.    All the things that make me feel like less of a person.   All the things that make me feel unworthy,  unloveable, and undeserving.  I read my words,  my thoughts,  my emotions and struggle to leave them in print.  But therapy has brought me to understand that it’s important not to censor them because they are part of my journey.   They are part of my understanding of how trauma has affected me and my life.   Those memories are part of my healing.   I can’t eradicate them from my history nor from my writings.

 

The Things That Bind Us

I think what binds us to the toxic people in our lives,  to the narcissists,  whether they be friends,  co-workers,  partners,  parents, or family, is that in between the cruelty they’ll do things to make themselves look good or generous or loving.    My mother made me beautiful clothing,  and beautiful costumes for dance.   There were times when we’d laugh.   Those ‘good times’  are what bind us to our abusers.    It’s like the abusive spouse who beats his wife but in between beatings says how sorry he is and how much he loves her.    Nobody ever said sorry to me or told me that they loved me but the ‘nice things’ that they did in between the psychological abuse kept me in the web.   It’s like playing the lottery.    That 649 free ticket that you win once or twice a year is random reinforcement that keeps you addicted to playing.   With victims of abuse it’s the same dynamic.     I think the reason we stay in toxic relationships is because those random acts of kindness/generosity,  those little bits of attention and acceptance, even if ingenious,  draw us in and keep us there because part of us hopes that one day, things will be better.   That one day we’ll be accepted,  loved,  and “enough”.  But the reality is that will never happen.   We’ll never be enough because those relationships are one sided.

 

Guilt,  Guilt,  And More Guilt

When my dad was alive and in the last few years of his life,  my depression was peaking and my frustrations were peaking due to the no privacy ,  no social life, the worry about my dads health,  and the fear of him dying.   The fear of losing him was with me for several years ,  as he’d had a few close calls.    As he got older and harder of hearing I had to repeat everything at least twice and it was both exhausting and irritating.   At times I wondered if he didn’t hear me or was just not paying attention.   It was probably a little bit of both.   What  I feel guilty about is that there were times when I know I was short tempered with him.    When I was irritated and took it out on him by being sharp.  I never said anything cruel or hurtful,  but I know my tone was irritated and impatient.  And I know that it wasn’t just from having to repeat myself , it was that I was hurting and scared,  and frustrated,  and feeling helpless,  and although unknown to me at the time …… depressed.   Once I became aware of my irritated snappy tone,  I did my best not to go there.    But I still felt,  and still do feel,  guilty.