All the words

Yes.  That is why I am so glad to have the words of others. 

I think this often,  how can there be so much and not a single person do anything to help or support.  

I am so tired of the tears.  They seem to come all the time and for the smallest things. So many things that I don't know how to explain or express. 

I have felt this my entire life.  Always feeling like i am the one that has to apologize for the things that have happened to me. 

At this point I get sad there are so many things that I missed out on, and there is no way that I can ever get it back.  There is a hole that nothing seems to fill right now. 

I have no one.  There is no shoulder to cry on.  There is no soft place to fall.  I cry on my own , deal on my own.  There are a few people I will not dismiss, yet when all is said and done,  I have to do this alone. Often Its smile pretend you are fine, then repeat the next day. 

And its so exhausting.  Fighting is so hard.  Fighting a past that was terrifying, realizing that people knew, there is a sense of terminal aloneness in my world and there are days when healing takes all the life out of you. 

I try with my words sometimes they work and other times they don't. 

Tell that to everyone else in the world. I cannot tell you the number of people that are no longer around, because they can't handle the healing, the growing and the pain. My life is so much more than being able to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, it's much more complicated.   There are the things I do have control over, and there are things that I have zero control over, and people don't understand that. 

I am trying so hard.  That pain lives in every cell so telling me to put it somewhere else doesn't help.   I am trying little by little one piece at a time.  Healing takes as long as it takes. 

No one can understand the things that it takes for me just to be "Normal" Just to do the normal life things that people take for granted. It's the simple things, talking to others, taking your car for an oil change going to the dr.  Such little things that are more than hard for me. Taking a shower, brushing my teeth, people do these things and don't think me I do, I have to think through those things and keep myself in my own skin.  Those simple things awake the memories and bring the fear and the tears.  Imagine doing that every single day. 

Yes, the words that I can't get out, the words that are stuck in my bones are the hardest words that may never be released because I literally can't. 

Yes, survival is a strange thing.  Somedays you are glad and can see how far that you have come.  Other days you wonder why you did because the healing is so very very hard and more than lonely. 

Oh this,  there is still a fear that if people could only see they would run run as fast as they could. 

Just always different.  My experiences were different, I saw the world different.  My everyday is different and there are not many that can understand that. 

Oh, this.  My family I never was allowed to feel the things that I did.  I was the one that had to be careful of everyone's else's feelings awhile mine were stomped on and somehow that was ok.  Even when my mom died.  I wasn't allowed to have my feelings, and had to be careful what I said.  It was ok for everyone ese to have theirs and I always took that into consideration, all I wanted was the same consideration. 

I am a deep person, I feel deeply and experience deeply. I think its because I have known the deepest depths of sadness.  There is a place there that feels like home. 

I had to be so grown up all the time.  There was no time to be a girl and I will always miss that.  

Sometimes it feels like this healing will never be at a place where I am happy.  I keep fighting but honestly there are times that I wonder if somethings just are not made for me.  Maybe there are thing that I have missed the boat on, and I just have to learn to accept that. 

Suffer.  That is a very lonely word. 

Sometimes i still imagine that safe place, at this point I don't think its for me but there are moments I imagine, just a person to call mine that cares for my heart even on the bad days. 

Too many dark days.  I need a respite a place where there is peace. A place where it's safe to just be. 

ALL THE TIME

I think it's always going to hurt.  I just think I will be able to hide it better on some days. 

Me TOO, Me TOO

People don't understand this.  There are times they easily say don't get stuck there. What they don't understand is that some of the things that happened to us are just as stuck to us. 

Survival is such a strange thing.  

The storm ended but it's the aftermath that feels so very destructive. 

More people need to understand this.  There are days in my brain its happening.  There are days I am in a daze because it feels like yesterday. There are days, I can't do things because they are all reminders.  I am not being dramatic. I am not holding on its just what happens and how I live. 

Some days its all so overwhelming and the past and present makes everything blurry .

Oh this brain of mine.  I wish there were times when i could just shut it off.

Lots of these days lately. LOTS of them.  I can't figure out why. 

I am trying. 

Just so much sadness.  There are parts I can't save no matter how hard I try.  Sometimes that just isn't ok with me. 

I am scared all the time.  That I am not enough not smart enough, not anything enough. 

Always the little things. I notice them all.

I am trying so hard. 

Smart.  Being left alone in your own thoughts that tell you your everything awful.  Those are things that change a person. 

The trauma is the monster and there are days I feel like it had made me something more monster than human. Such an unsettling feeling. 

Struggling to find that purpose.  My story has to mean something. 

This. That.  Again I don't get to feel or experience, just survive keep breathing, keep fighting. 

My poor heart.

The maze of healing. 

If this isn't the truth. 

This is what it feels like reaching for the future while feelings the barbs of the past. Always. Always. 

I want it to matter. I want it to be unreal. I struggle with the why.  Wanting it to be anything other than what it is.  It hurts a person's heart. It's a heaviness that takes a person's breath away.

I want this, if I could just find the words. 

Oh the thoughts. 

There was always a feeling of being lost.  I was never found EVER by anyone. 

It is and I wish that brought me some peace. 

Always wishing to be somewhere else. 

Yes, so many did and that is the story of my life. 

I want to be proud of me for all the things I did to get here, I want to get through the sad to be able to see it. 

oh this.  A kind, gentle, warm hug that never stops. 

Just to be understood.  

Just the cracked pieces.

I used this in a paper for school. My motto.  Sometimes I find myself not believing I am still standing.  Some fucking day I am going to stand tall and be excited that I made it. 

Be Brave. Be very Brave. 

I know I know. it just hurts my heart. 

Just a little light. That has always kept me going. 

For you Spunky, it's ok. Your enough and I am strong.

Hard lesson. My side does matter and someday someone will listen. 

This picture. The smallest normal things and I feel like I am being choked, I just wanted something normal, something good but all I got were thorns. 

A happy person with a sad soul. An oh so sad soul. 

I am so trying, I will make it just a very rough in-between spot. 

I have to believe this but will I always be doing it alone ? 

I do it because i deserve more, and I want truly happy not just happy for others.

I know I know I know.

Battle scars of surviving another day in a world that doesn't want you to speak.

I need some beautiful things. 

I believe you Spunky, and all the hell you lived. I am here. 

Even on my worst days I find something.  Even if its a heart. 

Just another of the things that others can not understand. 

I am more than grateful for all the authors of these words and pictures. They are a part of my story that gives me words when I can't find that express things I long for.  I am so tired.  I need happy. I need unconditional.  I need genuine kindness and support even in my crazy sad.  I keep fighting , keep searching for healing and someday this sad will lift and I can look back and think wow Callahan you have come a long way. I don't feel that today, but I will someday. 

 

My life feels foreign

 

Who am I kidding my life feels foreign a lot of the time.  There are days I wonder how I am still breathing, how I am even standing. So easily I can put things in a box and function.  Then there are moments I am overwhelmed and wonder if the pain and tears will ever stop. There are days that I accomplish so much and feel like I was productive. I got an oil change the other day and was so proud of myself.  A stupid little thing that was big for me.   I am in a place where I go back and forth between the two. I sit in my grad classes and think Callahan look where you and all that you have accomplished. You have a house and a job and you are doing all the things in this world.   Then my professor  says something about a girl being raped from an early age and the implications of that and the tears come.  Other times he talks about clients and I think ok, that is something I want to do.  Some days I can totally put my stuff in a box and function. Other times a single word and I can't stop the tears. I don't know I am just in a strange place, and I don't like it.  I don't like it all.

So many examples of life that my professor uses are things that don't fit me. Things that feel like a foreign language, because normal feelings, what is that; normal I don't have a clue ? Sometimes his examples feel like I belong on another planet.  Not because I know that they don't exist but just because the life that I have lived is so very different.  There was not one normal thing about my life growing up, not my parents, not church, not a single relationship.  There weren't really many friendships. Highschool was spent in a terrified place spending lunch alone in the library. Romance or dating, no not that really either.  I had no normal things in my life .  The normal things in my life were the trees and the flowers, the world around me that were my comfort.  That is where I found my normal. 

Today in class he wanted us to draw our living room growing up and name the hurt, right away without a second thought I said '"can't I draw my living room now?!?" All of the sudden I felt like I was in a cage.  I can't draw my living room and I can't name that pain.  Those are the things that bother me, because I can't draw that living room and tell you the hurt.  I think about it and the pictures start to play the one that I have always felt bad about, the one where I am gleeful and pretending to hit my father.  I am wearing that stupid penguin sweater. The guilt that I feel today about that picture is huge.  I see 5 men that should not be there. I see the fan as I repeated their names.  I see a fireplace that I used to love decorated at Christmas.  I see the couch from Mary York and having to lay on my father's hip as he stroked my hair.  When I picture my living room growing up those are the first things that come to mind. So I draw my living today and think, my happy place.  All the things that are mine.  That I have worked so hard for. And where is the pain? My first thought is the mom that I don't have. The last time I saw my mom was sitting in her chair in the corner of the room, and she wasn't listening to me.  I was talking but she wasn't listening and surely didn't hear me. I picture my living room and they are all my happy things but I am sad and so alone.  The tears fall and there is no care.  Just stop and keep moving forward.

My professor talks about relationships and romantic feelings.  I don't have a clue.  He talks about that butterfly feeling and I think oh no I know what happens with that.   He talks about wanting someone to tell you that you are pretty and that they like you, but no I don't want to hear those things.  I don't understand those things, I don't understand having them and I cannot imagine feeling comfortable with them.  Maybe there is a realization that I am going to be a lonely old lady.  That just hurts.  I cannot imagine the experiences that he speaks of being things that I can ever understand.  I have never been in love, never been loved like that.  I do believe in life that there are just certain experiences that I will never have.  So many life experiences have been stolen.  I will not dwell on the things I have have never had.  It's just that there are times that its blatantly clear just how much I have missed in this world and that stings.  Sometimes I think how can I be helpful to others, because there are so many things that I still just don't have a clue about.  It's saddening, and heart breaking. I am just so behind. 

I heart your heart

Death Grip

 

Yes, this.  I have a death grip on the things that happened to me when I was 13.  I hold on to them for dear life.  They are mine, those things happened to me. I think a part of me holds on to them to prove that they happened that I was hurt no matter what all those people said or how they made me feel, it happened. I hold on to those things because I was told that I should.  Because those things don't happen to girls like me, because those things don't happen to a girl who is chubby and unpopular.  Those things don't happen to a girl who isn't pretty.  So, I hold on to them as proof that those terrible things happen, and they happened to me.  I hold on to them so that if someday someone asks why are you the way that you are? You're so weird, you're so strange what the fuck is wrong with you? Then then, I can open those places inside where the most ugly live and scream this; this is why I am the way that I am. Because I was left to deal with tragedy on my own. I want to say that I don't hold on to them on purpose.  There is a part of me that wished nothing more than to let them go. There is also a part of me that feels these things are precious and I have to take care of them.  I have to hold them, remember them so that those things never happen again.  There is a part of me that feels this is a story that must be held oh so carefully and in the utmost regard.  I think a part of me holds them out of respect for Spunky. 

She survived the things that everyone told her didn't happen, so I hold them for her.  I hold them because she lives there in those things, and I won't let her carry them alone.  Somehow if I let them go, she is left alone to suffer, and that is something i am not prepared to do. Somehow holding on to them keeps us both alive.  letting go feels like a death sentence for her, and and for me I would be acting like all those that shoved me to the side and pretended I didn't matter. Somehow, she will fall and keep falling if I let go like somehow we will forget and get lost in the darkness. That is something I am not prepared to do.  For the first time ever a few weeks ago, she actually heard that she was believed, all these years later she finally heard the words that she longed for. I could feel a certain release, a softening, an appreciation that for a short time she didn't have to carry it all.  I am not sure that you can understand what that does to a person.  To have something so life shattering happen to you, and everyone around you pretends that nothing happened, its soul crushing.  To have that happen changes who you are and you spend your entire life knowing the things that happened and not understanding why no one saw you.  A person spends their life holding on to it because what else is there to do when you live the memories whether you are awake or sleeping. All the people around you that should be listening, should be helping, caring and carrying the burden tell you you are not worth even that much.  You are so much less of a person that being gang raped for hour after hour after hour doesn't matter.  So I hold it for spunky, that I believe her and I know the things that happened. I remember their words and their hands.  I remember their names and the tiniest of tiny details as we fought for our life. So, yes, I have a death grip because to let go makes me one of the others who said those things don't happen to a girl to me.  I am not even sure that any of this makes sense, but I have to try and explain.  There are moments of time, I am not in 2023, I am 13 and back there in those moments and I am a bridge between here and there trying to hold on to spunky so that she holds on to life and can someday see the good things and feel the sun on her face. I am the bridge I am the girl that today is a teacher a mom, a grad student that can never forget that spunky little girl and the suffering she went through and not a single fucking person cared.  I am the bridge and I have to hold on until she is ready, until she can trust until she is safe to take those steps and come with me in the here and now so we can face the other side and then burn that fucking bridge to the ground. So yes, I want to let go but letting go is leaving spunky there in the unthinkable and like everyone else that left her alone during that time that is not something that I am willing to do. SO, I will hold on until she gains strength gains trust and makes the journey to be with me. What happened is mortifying and I will hold it until we can face it together. 

I heart your heart 

Spunky Callahan

 

So let me introduce Spunky Callahan.  She is something magnificent, and amazing but she doesn't have a clue.  She thinks all these things inside her head and keeps them all to herself.  She has a story that is longing to be told but fears the things that others will think and feel about her.  As scared as she is in every moment of life, she has this side of her that can always find something funny.  Ok, well almost always. She has a wild imagination that always helped her survive the unthinkable.  She has this amazing hope that someday; someday she is going to find all the things that she is looking for.  She lives a life that very few can understand. 

 She is different, unique and hence the name spunky. Her entire life she has had to see things different, she has had to survive and find ways to keep herself alive.  She took every evil that was thrown her way and was a master at pretending she was fine. She thrives on kindness and found little.  She always had a connection to nature, because the wind, the trees the birds ;those were all things that allowed her to escape.  She could sit outside for hours taking in the breeze, listening to the rustling branches and watching the birds.  At least she knows that nature, the beautiful things around her are the only things that will never hurt her.  That is when she can rest and find some peace.  

She hides everything so well, always trying to be fine, wanting to be ok.  Really, she isn't ok 99.99% of the time but she always keeps smiling.  She is a fighter, in a every sense of the word and even when she wants to give up, she never does.  She sees things different; she knows the world is a dangerous place and keeps trying to get others to understand and do things different. I believe she has lived hundreds of lifetimes in her one short life.  She struggles to find joy, and longs for a time when her heart will be at peace and that spunky girl no longer is suffering. 

Her mind is a busy place always watching and learning. She remembers the smallest details and recalls the most insignificant details about things. Not often but when she does let some of that spunk of hers out, she has this giggle that is pure delight. She has an attitude that wants to let you know exactly what she thinks.  She asks questions more than she makes statements.  She is curious and wants to understand the who, how and why of how things work.  She takes whatever is handed to her and keeps going.  At this moment in time, she feels pretty defeated.  She is so afraid, yet still trying to trust and believe in the people around her. She is terrified of being hurt again, at this point she knows that she wouldn't make it.  I think even more than that she wouldn't want to make it. She has no idea how strong she is, often feels less than all those people around her. She is always behind, in every way of life and wants more than anything not to be alone and to belong somewhere and not have to change the person that she is. 

There have been times when this girl has made me more than proud. When she spoke what she needed to say, or when she was able to laugh at the absurd and survive another day.  These are two stories about this spunky girl, that always make me smile. Though they are sad, and desperate they are also something amazing.  Even in hell she found a way to survive, she found a way to giggle to keep her little spirit alive. 

The first one was early middle school maybe.  I was sick and not feeling well at all.  I was unable to swallow regular Tylenol.  I guess that this afternoon my father had had enough.  He screamed and yelled saying that I was costing him too much in chewable Tylenol.  Things get a little fuzzy, I was told to climb on the kitchen table and lay down.  He was going to try and shove the pills down my throat.  My brother was standing there watching, my mother not even 10 feet away.   He scratched my already sore throat with his jagged nails as he tried to shove the pills down my throat.  I was devastated and ashamed, there was an audience and there I was laying on the dining room table, the same table where we ate dinner.  I remember climbing on the chairs, to get on the table terrified of what was going to happen.  I wonder what his thoughts were, making me lay on the table.  The more he tried the more I fought.  Not meaning to, my body could not swallow those pills.  He tried for what felt like a very long time, finally screaming at me to get off the table, and go to my room.  So, I did.  I did go to my room.  And that spunky girl spit those pills out of her mouth with such a feeling of accomplishment.  I can remember sitting in my yellow room, on the floor at the foot of my bed holding them in my hand and almost being proud of myself.  I put those fucking pills on my dresser, and there was a relief. There was a sense that she stood up to him.  As bad as my throat hurt, Tasting the blood in my mouth and as devasted as I felt; He didn't win. At least in this moment he didn't win and that was a celebration. 

Another time was when I was in high school. There was a part of her that literally didn't care anymore.  Everything that mattered and was important to her was taken away.  She was breathing and barely surviving.  She was going through the motions.  Her family was all involved in church, and she wanted nothing to do with it.  She didn't believe in the idea of religion that was spoken about in her house.  They all talked about prayer, God and forgiveness.  None of that made sense with the things that were happening to me in my own home. My father's hobbies included always reading the bible out loud or playing one form or the other on the stereo.  Well, the thing was the stereo was more advanced than him and he couldn't get it to work.  He would play this like cricket music.  So annoying and he pretended nothing was strange as that music was on and he read from the bible.  If anyone could have been a fly on the wall in my house, I would give anything for their interpretation of the day.  So, I am standing there as he is trying to get this thousand-dollar stereo to work.  He is swearing, the Fu's were flying and all of the sudden I couldn't catch my words. I just watched and out of nowhere the words just came out "what an asshole:" I quickly grabbed my mouth not believing what I had just let slip. I looked around at my mom, thinking I am dead, I am totally dead.  I ran to my room closed the door and after a few minutes when I realized he wasn't coming to end my life I couldn't stop laughing. I was shocked at the words that came out of my mouth and relieved that either he didn't hear me or was so shocked that he would just rather keep screaming at the stereo.  I can remember feeling so alive laughing in my room.  It felt so good calling him an asshole.  I had to put my hand over my own mouth to muffle the gleefulness that I felt in my bones. I was so proud of that girl for speaking. He was an ass hole in every sense of the word.

We had so few moments of joy.  Every small thing was always taken away and stolen before we had the chance to enjoy it. I think that I am finally seeing her as the little girl that she was.  She was not a woman; she was not an adult.  She just had to make adult decisions, about so many things and there was no other choice. She feels guilty, she feels scared and so alone.  She knows that she is different and doesn't have a clue how to fit into the world that never seemed to want her in it. Her heart hurts all the time. She lives in a state of panic, even though she knows it's been a long time since anything has happened to her,  she lives in the place where it does.  Where she lives and the things, she has experienced are things you couldn't imagine.  I can see the strong brave girl.  I can see the girl I see the pain, the terror the lonliness and I just want her to be free, I just want her to let that spunky girl out.  I want the world to know and love this spunky girl, as it should have always been. Let her breathe free air and feel all the belly laughs that she had to swallow.  I want her to sit, comfortable in her story in her own skin and revel in the girl that she has always been. I want her to feel safe and sound and know that I am here and can handle her deepest darkest secrets.  Sweet girl, my spunky girl you don't have to hide, for one more single second.  I am here. 

I heart your heart.