My brain goes off line

 

My brain goes offline and all I see, hear and feel is the past. shadows that still haunt. Shadows that are still capable creating a great deal of panic, regret and embarrassment. I feel like its happening more often at the worst of times. Of coarse, there are the normal days, when its there running in the back ground. Sometimes its worse and the days of past are front and center. When the concentration is gone, the lack of focus is blaring and the smile is fake; because tears are never far away. Even at work there are times that my brain is literally on survival mode.  From the second that I wake up its so vivid and clear. Its a fight to pull myself out of bed to face another day. All I really want to do is curl up in a ball and be anywhere else. I fight because that is what I know how to do.  But I imagine a day when I don't have to fight so hard, when I don't wake up thinking about which battle will be the one that I have to conquer today.  It gets old reaching out, and literally, I don't do it much anymore.  There are times I send Mark a blog, but then I feel guilty.  Then I don't get an answer and feel even more guilty.  It's like that turtle, slowly putting his head out to see the world then getting spooked and pulling it right back in.  I feel like that all the time.  I am on overload most of the time lately and I know that I can't keep it up.  

This last week was spring break, and the difference was unimaginable,  there was peace, there was rest. I had time to just be and that is something that I don't get often. There were the normal issues that came up for me.  There was the achy body from a night full of nightmares, there were a few all too real flashbacks, those things felt more doable because, I could just be. I could write, I could do my art journal I listened to my music made dinner, I got to watch my shows.  I started Game of Thrones, which is awesome.  There was a much needed break, I did some of my fun stuff getting things ready for my kids.  I have a shit tone of stuff to do for work, but that will get done tomorrow.  

I have to figure out how to get this all this time.  I need more of a balance I need to know that where I am is ok, that I can rest and there is no judgement.  I need to make dinner for my family and know that Vincent won't turn up his nose.  My brain was offline more than it should have been, but the rest was welcomed.  Even with the things I had to do, there was still rest and it felt amazing.  My brain is so overloaded, ALL THE TIME.  I really can't keep going at that pace.  I need time to decompress, I need time to not be judged.  I need time to just be the crazy me that I am. The writer the teacher, the mom, the lover of Nature I need time for those things.  This week I got a piece of that again and it was more than awesome.  There is that sad that is always there but it is so much less intense when when your brain has a chance to just be. 

Next step I have to find a way to get this more often for me, because its more than needed. I need it for my mere survival.  Life has been hell and I need to find that freedom to continue to heal and process and to accomplish all the things that I have yet to do.  The things I want are not an option in survival mode,  and that is where I have lived.  I want to find that peaceful place everyday, without waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

My life such a work in progress. Now off to the store to but steak for my family and some flair pens for me .  Bring on the last 9 weeks of school.  9 weeks , that's doable. I want to be in the game living not merely surviving.  I want my brain online and loving life, not detached and scared.  Here's to the next steps , hold on to your hat. 

I heart your heart

Windshield

 You know sometimes its the simple things. My windshield has been cracked for a few years. I would never spend the money to get it fixed. There was a level of worthiness or lack of worth that played a huge part in this for me. There was always something else that came first.  Every day when I got in my car, I more than hated looking at that crack, that over the months had gotten bigger and bigger .  The once little crack had spread. I somehow in my head thought that I deserved that crack, that it was literally a representation that I don't didn't and never will deserve better.  Kind of a theme in my life not deserving good things, not deserving to have nice things.  It was the same kind of thing when someone wanted to give me their broken couch. I said no then they said they were just going to throw it away anyway and  the comments that were made broke my heart.  I wasn't worth a nice couch that wasn't broken. I wasn't worth a beautiful clear windshield.  

Finally Finally after the last freeze,  the crack spread.  You could hear the glass cracking as the ice began to de-thaw.  I was afraid of the entire window caving in.  So I did it, I finally got a new windshield. I can not even tell you how great that it is. If a windshield can be beautiful mine is all that and more.  This sounds so incredibly stupid but oh so how I have felt.  Someday I hope that my worth won't even be a question for me. 

I heart your heart

I despise her

It is unbelievable the hate that I have for that 13 year old part of myself.  There is me little Callahan and then that 13 year old. I have come to a place that I don't hate little Callahan. I would actually like to hold her give her a hug show her that sometimes its ok for a tree just to be a tree. I can even say, I think I love her. That little amazing fighter, that never once gave up.

That 13 year old part; I see her as the blackness, the horror the unimaginable. I see her as the gross and disgusting that I thought was long gone. I was talking about her and said I wished that she was 6 feet under covered in cement. That just makes me sad. I don't want to hate her, I want to keep her close but I don't know how. I don't know how to like a girl so needy and desperate. I don't know how to like a girl that, wanted attention, that is so gross and disgusting. Things happened to her, that were unimaginable, that I didn't know could happen. She survived things that there are no words for. I worry that letting her close will literally kill me, that I'm am just not in a place to meet her needs. She has survived and made it through, I think there is a part of me that worries that I won't. 

I can hear Mark's words. She is you and you are her. I want that to make sense.  I want that to sink in.  Really, I don't want to be her.  I don't want to see things through her eyes, I m scared that I just won't be ok if I let her close. She is me, I am not sure what to do with that. I hear Mark that we have a lot of the same characteristics.  Some of the words that I use to describe me, are the same kind of things that I use for her.  That is beyond terrifying.  I don't want to be like her. I want to be innocent and naïve about some of the world. I don't want to know how those things happen and how they are lived through. I want to imagine that she isn't so gross and disgusting and I am not sure that I can do that. I see her behind this wall of blackness, I see what was done to her, her terror the evil and its all too much to take in. That wall is so thick and I struggle seeing the girl that is barely breathing under the massive amount of evil that she was under. I literally worry that I won't make it, that somehow I will be crushed and unable to breathe and then what.......

My heart feels like its in a vise and is getting squeezed harder and harder, taking my breath away. Literally I feel it in my chest, its more than heavy. I do not like the feelings that come with her.  I don't like the reality that she comes with. There is a quote that says something about already surviving it that you can survive the healing but it just doesn't feel like that. It doesn't feel like connecting with her, loving her and respecting her is survivable. 

I heart your heart 

Purity

I have trouble with even the word: Purity. Hearing it spoken makes my heart want to hide away. This is not a word meant for me, never was and never will be. From as early as I can remember there has been a feeling of being dirty, being used being less than.  I was never up to anyone's standards.  I was never on an even playing field. 

There is a feeling that I have never lived without, being less than, unworthy.  I am not sure that I can even explain all the ways.  It's really kind of crazy, everything that I was, was disgusting.  There was never a time I felt pretty or worthy.  There was never a time when I was just comfortable in my on skin.  I always remember that I was less than, and gross.  

So many little things that all played into this feeling.   Who I was, was never ok. The person I was was always to something for someone. To quiet, too weird, to needy, I was only useful to take care of others needs. What I wanted and needed never mattered. My words were never heard, my cries never acknowledged.

I would hear stories in church of being pure, white as snow, saving yourself. Saving yourself for a special man giving him a part of you as a gift. Those are things I never understood. Those are things I never understood because those pure things were never valued in me. Those pure things were for pretty clean girls. 

So no, I was never pure, valued. I was never something to be cherished ,seen for the person I was. There is no gift for any man, that might be mine. All that is here is everything used, gross and disgusting. The things that have been done can never be undone. The things I have seen can never be unseen. I am not pure and clean I am exactly the opposite. The shame in what I have survived is unimaginable. The time and effort it would take to overlook, the unclean, impure is something that just can't be asked.

I can't see that word and think good things. I see and hear this word and think all the things I am not. When all those things that have made you impure are felt in your bones and replayed in your nightmares, pure is something that you can not comprehend.

I heart your heart

The Shower

 A shower is supposed to be a place to wash away the unclean

For me the shower is the unclean, the undoing, the evil that began the day

A young girl listening to her music , preparing for the day,  singing like no one was listening

Singing a song I can't remember anymore ….

Because just like that it stopped, My silver boom box , that click of a cassette being paused

Like everything else, the world stopped. Just Stopped. The lights inside went out , 

I looked out of the shower curtain and there stood Don. 

Millions of thoughts yet I was frozen.

There was an implosion in my heart, why was he back,  WHY,WHY, WHY 

I didn't understand.  There was no where to go. 

He had that smile, not the kind gentle kind. The evil horrific kind.

He started to undress. I tried to grab a towel,

He grabbed it telling me I wouldn't need it

The tears started, and the begging began. 

There was a part of me that knew what was going to happen, 

a part of me died, another went away and another stayed and endured. 

More begging, pleading, that just seemed to make him joyful.

His undressing took seconds but it felt like forever and he was in the shower. 

The tears, the begging, Please stop, please don't , stop , no , that hurts me , 

The cold shower wall I was pushed on, he held my hands over my head

He turned the water so hot, I felt like my skin was going to fall off

Once again another soul scream, I was raped.  

His words like knives, I wanted it, even liked it . 

Those were not my thoughts.  I wanted him to stop, I wanted him out of me. I wanted to be singing my song. I didn't like , never wanted that.

I don't know how long he was there in the shower, because truly time stopped. 

He was rough, he was violent he was hurtful. He hit, he choked, he laughed. 

I was far away, I didn't feel anymore, I saw the blood, and felt nothing.

He was done and got out of the shower. An accomplishment for him.

I was broken. 

The water had gone cold, and hurt my burnt skin.  I fell to the shower floor. 

This is what I was made for.  

I finally reached and shut the water off..  

My mind trying to figure out my next steps, clean up, get dressed, forget 

Only to open the shower curtain and realize he was still there, he was looking and laughing. 

He had no intention of going anywhere.  This was the beginning of the end, he had plans for the day. 

I heart your heart.