when you hate being a girl

 I had to get some head shots for promotion that the conference will use in July.  When I got them back it was really hard.  There was lots of closing them down so that I didn't have to see them anymore.  In them I see a girl, I see ugly and gross and trying to find one that was presentable was really hard.  There was lots of cropping, because you see, I felt like they showed to much of my chest, and I have always hated my chest.  I have always hated that I had a chest from pretty early on.  Whether I was skinny or not, I have always had a chest.  When I had really good insurance, I was going to get a reduction.  I wanted them really small.  I can remember the Dr saying are you sure, once we remove what we do it can't be undone.  No, I was completely sure. My chest my breasts have always given me attention that I have always hated.  First my father then Albert.  I remember the guy in my fifth-grade class, he sat behind me and was constantly grabbing me, until I finally asked to be moved.  Constant attention and reminders that others could take what they wanted.  Maybe someday, I will get that reduction, I cannot even tell you how happy that would make me.  

So the pictures, there was just so much ugly in me, and I struggled to get away from that.  There were a few that I was able to crop that I liked. But for me, I don't like pictures and its attention that makes me nervous, makes me feel seen in the most uncomfortable ways. 

I just feel ugly and part of that is just me.  I am overweight and there are pieces of that that keep me safe.  There are pieces of that, that provide a kind of safety.  I hear Joan, I was just the chubby unpopular kid who would want to rape me?  I took that to heart.  I was even too disgusting to be raped.   Well, let me fix that, get heavier and maybe I won't ever be hurt again. I did get skinny once, I didn't each much at all, I was comfortable in my own skin but once that attention started, I panicked. I was in a CD store and there was a guy that commented on my shirt, it scared the shit out of me like I didn't ask you to compliment my shirt. He tried talking to me about the music that I was looking at but I saw him as a threat.  Why would he talk to me? There was the guy that knew I came to class early and he would also get there early and hold the door open for me.  When I smiled and said save the whales there was no mocking or saying it was stupid, he would just smile. I will never forget him.  There was Scott that I met at Colin County.  He saw me and was more than kind.  We had so many things in common and I just couldn't bear to be seen.  There is a part of me that sees the pictures and thinks she isn't so ugly.  I don't see the things that have happened to her.  I see a kind soul, I see a woman who holds joy, kindness and there is a softness to her.  Maybe someday, I will look at these pictures and think, look how far you have come.  Look at why these pictures are taken look at all of the things that you are accomplishing.  Someday, I hope I can see me and see those things. There is a piece of me that sees these pictures and I think, I would be her friend.  I want to know what makes her happy and what makes her sad.  I want to know her story and where she has come from.   I wonder what others will think when they see them. I wonder if others can see the ugly, I feel inside. I see the one of me laughing and think, she looks so happy so settled. No one would ever know the horror she survived.  It's like there is a part of me that doesn't deserve to be pretty to feel comfortable in my skin.   It looks like she doesn't have a care in the world.  I look very girly in the pictures and being a girl was something that I have always hated. Being a girl gets you hurt, being a girl is more than hurtful. I sit here looking at these pictures and I think : 

                                                                   Yes that.  Someday. 

I hope that someday when I am gone, someone, somewhere, picks my soul up off of these pages and thinks, I would have loved her. Nicole Lyons. 

I heart your heart 

Wants and Needs

 

I am finding that I often don't have a clue how to distinguish between the two.  I want to win the lottery.  But do I need to win the lottery?  Of course not.  The things that I have wanted and needed in my life are things that never happened a good amount of the time. I often feel needy, and I think that is one of the worst feelings in the world.  I feel like the things that I need are just too much to ask of people.  I fear that I am so needy that people are going to see me coming and run the other way.  That is a constant real fear in my world.  There isn't a day that goes by that needy doesn't cross my mind. Growing up in my house, there could be no needs and your wants didn't matter.  Growing up in that is something that creates ideas about things that are so opposite of how they should be.  Even today at 49 I am having to look at how those things are impacting me and what I can do to change it.  All these years later, I am still so affected. There is this idea in my head that I am not supposed to need anything.  And my wants well does that really even matter? 

I am really struggling with this.  And I am maybe beating myself up a little to be 49 and confused about this is a lot to take in.  I get where it comes from.  I was never allowed wants and needs.  Everyone else's needs always mattered more.  And it wasn't a thought to voice the things that you wanted because what I wanted never mattered.  Thats puts a little one in a very strange place.  And sitting here I can't help but think just how fucked that my entire childhood was.  Completely batshit insane crazy was the world that I grew up in.  

So we were talking last night and this pyramid seems so off in so many ways.  I am trying to understand the young girl that I was 13, how she survived and how she fits into my world today and it just might be the hardest thing that I have ever done. It still is something crazy how those ideas and feelings come from the house that I grew up.  They were so angry at me at 13 for my responses to what happened to me, for the person that I was.  At the same time I was the person that they created.  That is extremely frustrating, all the things they taught me they used against me, talk about fucking confusing. For me this pyramid means nothing.  Yes, my basic needs were met I had food and shelter.  The bare basics I had those.  I had a bed and toys, I had a roof over my house.  But going from there, the number of things that I didn't get are things that I still have to fight today.  

 

Next level, Safety and security.  There was no safety in my world I was hurt, used for everyone's needs around me. Whatever those around me wanted was what was taken.  They wanted sex they took it, they wanted to touch me that is exactly what they did.  There was never a sense of safety and I never felt secure ever.  Not even in my own parents' arms.  There was always a sense not to get too comfortable because, at any second someone could come and hurt you, so that is how you learn to live your life. 

 Love and belonging.  Yea that is a rough one.  I think there was a time that I felt love from my mom, but it was conditional.  As long as she agreed and was getting what she needed all was well with the world.  There was a competition, from her that I never asked her and never understood.  At 5 thinking it was ok that my father was touching me because he just thought I was my mom.  Why was that even a thought. how would I even know that kind of touching was between my parents?  I don't know but I never remember not knowing.  I was a part of so many things before I ever should have been.  And writing I think about the little things.  He would ask for a sandwich and I knew that was sex from as long as I can remember.  Why would I know that?  And my first thought was always concern for my mother.  Just so many thoughts that I never should have had. So, love, well there was some love, but it was conditional from my mother, and I don't remember ever feeling loved by my father, EVER Ever and I always tried so hard.  To be good and do the right thing but nothing made him happy. Then there is the belonging, I have never belonged anywhere in my entire life.  I have always felt like an outsider.  I think I belong with my peers in my Grad classes.  I feel like i belong there, but everywhere else, I am a misfit.  I think that is why I always understood the misfit toys.  There was always something wrong with me that made me different, and I just never belonged anywhere.  That longing was always there, but things just don't seem to go right a lot of the time. Finding a place where I belong often feels like a dream, I have belonged a few times, but in my everyday, there is not a sense of belonging. 

Self-Esteem--This one I don't even know.  Often like almost all the time, I don't feel like I am worth much.  I get moments and I feel good and then bam I fall face first back to reality.  I know in some ways I am smart, that I am good at some things but there is some kind of inherent awfulness that I feel down to my very bones. No matter what I do it's wrong, or not enough or not the right way and that kind of anxiety is so heavy. So yea, this one is tough.  I never grew up feeling that I was good enough just because of who I was as a person.  That thought is pretty foreign.  

I have to say that somehow, I managed the top of the pyramid. Might be some kind of miracle I learned so very early to take in all the small things that made my weird little heart happy and those were the things that kept me going.  It was my animals, it was nature, it was little kindnesses along the way that I learned to hold onto with all my might and those were the things that kept me alive.  There was always a sense that there was something else in the world for me.  There was always a sense that if I just kept going things were going to get better.  My goal was to make sure that others never had to feel the depth of the pain and sorrow that I felt.  In so many ways those were the things that kept me breathing and fighting.  I think my fight began for others and now I am in the picture, and I am fighting for myself.  I am fighting for all the things that I never got.  I am fighting to find some kind of happy medium making sure that others never have to feel the things that I have felt and at the same time fighting to create all those things for myself that so many take for granted. I take nothing for granted in this life and that has carried me.    

So I guess all that to say, I could not have any wants and needs growing up because neither of those things mattered. Today it still boggles my mind how twisted that the two can become.  I feel needy most of the time for things that others believe are just the basics of life.  So many things confusing to this brain of mine.  I feel like there are so many things that I need and feel that for so many reasons are not ok to need.  That feeling to belong somewhere is more than important and such a fight for me. Maybe someday. I think part of the struggle is that there is no way to go back and get some of those needs met.  All you can do is go forward.  I think sometimes with that, there are just going to be gaps and missing pieces because there is no way to even experience some things once they are past.  I often wonder is that is where that ever-present ache might come from.  When you don't have your needs met beyond the bare minimum, there are things that may never make sense to me.  When these gaps are created, there is just a gap in life.  I will move on I will find my place and my happy, but I think there will be moments when I still feel the sting of the things that I didn't get to experience. Sometimes that can be really heavy.  

I heart your heart. 

Deep thinker

 

I keep saying from where I have come from 

It seems to be an ever-present phrase 

From where I have come from 

I see things different; I experience the world different. 

And today I want people to understand that

And I am not sure that many people can 

But it's frustrating and I will continue to keep trying. 

The tears come because I have been to the darkest places

the tears come because I have this grateful heart that I want others 

to fully understand 

From where I have come from I have seen the darkest of dark 

And I have experienced the most gentle kindness, 

I have experienced the absolute worst that life has to offer

And I have come to know the most amazing humans 

I think about things through my eyes and experiences

And that is what I want the world to understand

I do see things different

I am more emotional 

Because at any second I could have even should have 

given up but I did not.  

I understand this fragile life in a very different way

And from where I have come from, the view is astounding 

I heart your heart

Time for Spunky : Holding space for her

 

The truth is there has not been much writing lately.  I am running from any feeling keeping myself busy doing everything but what it is that I need.  Grad School is out, The school year is ending and I have all this time and yet it terrifies me.  I sit to write and I start to feel and then find something else that needs my attention more.  The truth is I need my attention. Spunky needs attention right now. I need to stop running from the things that are pulling on my heart and know I will be ok.  I feel like Spunky needs an exceptional amount of care right now. She is screaming to be heard, to be seen and to be taken care of. She is so sad and so alone. She needs to know that what happened to her affected everything and that is ok. It may take her a life time, but she is worth that lifetime to heal and to be free. 

I don't even know how it fits in but I am terrified that people are going to leave.  Like if I voice all the things that she thinks and feels people will run. They will run as fast as they can, as far as they can. I don't have words to explain how real that is for me.  That once again I am going to take that chance and be left.  I just can't be left anymore. 

The last few weeks I find every reason to put her on a shelf.  I am busy, I have other more important things to do. I have a list of things I would rather do, but the truth is, she is begging for attention.  I feel it in my bones.  The last few weeks the nightmares have been constant.  Physically I feel the hurt that was done to her, and that is something that I don't even have words for.  They hurt her so much, and I wake up and I feel that.  The ache, the hurt.  All this time and I still feel it.  In a crazy way what they did has a hold on my cells, and they remember what was done.  That is something that brings the greatest amount of shame.  All these years later, I can still feel them.  I know all the right things; I know it wasn't her fault.  I know that dancing with him was in no way an invitation.  But this heart of mine wants to take full responsibility.  The flashbacks are plenty and they haven't been like this in a long time.  The fan, a touch, a piece of memory they are all there vying for attention and all I want to do is ignore.  I want it all to be nice and neat and that isn't a possibility. I feel like inviting her to be beside me, is a task that I want more than anything that I am at the same time terrified of. I just want her to be as much a part of me as little Callahan.  I want her free, I want her to be in a place of peace. I don't think she lives in that violent place but I think it still has a hold on her and that is what I need to break.  The hold that all those things have is so great and I don't fully understand why.  I know I keep saying after all this time, but it feels that after all this time, things should be easier for her.  She is ashamed of what was done. She is petrified of being left behind.  She holds an extreme amount of sadness that so much was taken away that she can never get back or experience again.  So here it is, this is my time to help spunky, out of the place that she is in and into the light.  Just jump sweet girl trust me,  we can't make it different but we can make a difference.  

I heart your heart. 

Sometimes no words

 

I find myself unable to write the last few weeks. I sit down with all of these thoughts, and I can't fit them together to make any kind of a cohesive thought. I fear that the writing will let out the emotions and I am not sure that I am prepared to do that.  There is a heavy tired in every part of me, like I need a breather, a break a time to recenter and be ok with where I am at. I am finally at a place where many of the things that hurt me in the past feel like they are very away.  I can see them, remember them but I don't have to experience them anymore.  That shift has been a long time coming for me, and something that feels like such a huge success.  And still there are other things that I constantly feel, that are on repeat, that still hold a kind of fear, that I don't understand after all this time.  There are some days that my heart feels like that thirteen-year-old girl scared to move, scared to breath.  There are days that I feel her in every bone of my body.  Her terror, her fight, her longing to be loved and cared for.  I have found myself feeling her more lately and that just beings a certain heaviness.  There are parts of me that struggle to understand the life that she survived.  I want her to come and sit near me and let me love her.  I want to care for that 13-year-old girl and show her all the kindness and light that the world has to offer.  She has to be close; I am fighting for her with all that I am.  She just has to trust that it's the right time and that her heart will be cared for not for a moment in time but forever.  I am fighting for that girl, I want her to be free, I want her to feel to love and laughter.  I want her to rest, take all the weight off her shoulders and for once in her life not have a care in the world.  

I truly feel like this is a piece I need to conquer for me to be free and move on.  It's not like somehow everything will be perfect.  I am not expecting things to be 100% over but she is a huge piece, she carries all that I do and don't remember.  I am here every day showing up, while she has shut the world out because she knows it's every danger.  I spend my time trying to give her hope and understanding that things are different.  She is believed she is loved she is everything that I need to move forward and create the life that we have always wanted.  She still feels like this other person, and I look forward to the day she feels like a part of me.   I want her close and am in awe that she survived the worst that the world has to offer.  I want to show her some of the best that the world has to offer, to do that I need her to come closer closer, just next to me so we can have an understanding of each other.  I want to tell her all those things are over and that it is ok to breathe freely.  She wants to remind me of the awful of the things that have happened that she fears will happen again. I think in a lot of ways she still blames herself.  She danced with him, she had butterflies, She did those things and today I know those were not things that invited what happened she feels so much less than all the time.  I think that maybe she fears sitting on the couch next to me because she feels most worthless as a human. Like there is this thought somewhere that once she is worthwhile then she can walk into Mark's office and be sad, be angry, be hurt .  Once she feels worthwhile to even feel all the things that she feels then she can make space to rest in a so safe place. Even writing about her, that part of me that wanted to die at 13, it's so heavy.  She has a heaviness, that I struggle with. She holds so many things that I fear facing.  The loss and pain that is in her heart is enough to stop it from beating, and that is difficult.  I know that we will make it.  We lived it once, and don't live there anymore yet it's so painful.  She never felt good enough.  Not only was it her fault what happened, it was her fault she lost Bella. It was her fault that she couldn't carry her, that loss is devastating after all this time.  She never got to talk about her, she never got to experience her loss her gried her soul shattering sadness.  She was expected to move on and pretend that nothing happened, but a lot happened she lost something that was her entire world and not a single soul cared for her heart.  I don't know how a 13 year old deals with that.  All she feels is guild about what happened and all the unanswered questions that there are no answers for.  I think that for many things in her life there are no words and there is the struggle trying to heal her.  I think she wants to sit beside me more than anything, but that fear is something so great.  I get that and I hope that soon she can take that leap and just do it. Things are different today I have never been stronger and there is no one that will shame her or make her feel like she is less.  She just feels those things as automatic as the breaths that she takes.  I am not giving up, that sweet girl deserves every kindness and more.  Words or no words, just be with me we can do this together. 

    I heart your heart 

Mothers Day

 

Oh, my heart.  I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep until it's over.  I hate this day, so very much.  For so many different reasons.  Being a single mom, you don't get a Mother's Day really.  The never-ending list that needs to get done doesn't stop because it's Mother's Day.  So, I will be shampooing the upstairs floor from the almost 18-year cat.  I will be vacuuming the stairs and all of downstairs.  We got some organic bananas last week and fruit flies have seemed to invade out kitchen. I have scrubbed and scrubbed and still they persist.  It's just a hard heavy heart day and it makes me sad.  There is no celebration really.  It will be a day like any other doing what I always do.  I already told Mariska that when I pick her up from work, I am just going to go upstairs.  Why prolong a day that hurts your heart.  Mariska was sweet this morning, she wrote me an amazing card that made me cry, she sees me and gets it. She got me some thoughtful gifts and was more than excited.  She said that she doesn't understand why our lives seem so hard a lot of the time, and I have to agree.  It is not an oh poor me.  That is not who I am, it's just that ordinary things are usually complicated for us, maybe the nature of the best.  I don't know, but life for us is often hard. Most often things do not work as planned and disappointment is just a part of how things go.

I am tired really really tired.  There are things that I just can't do on my own and I hate that more than words.  I have pictures from January that I haven't been able to hang up yet.  I have asked Vincent and there is always an excuse.  Something that would take him less than an hour to help will take me more than a day because I have to empty the library to be able to reach the pictures.  I put his laundry in the dryer, hang up his clothes.  He will throw the clean rugs on the floor and my shirt from the dryer will get thrown on top.  I love him so and sometimes it seems he purposely crushes my heart. 

There is a part of me that feels guilty on this day.  I remember the one time that I didn't give my mother even a card.  She had been treating me so terribly and I couldn't write a card that had some grateful message I was drowning, and she didn't care. I did feel bad and wrote one telling her that it must have fallen beside her nightstand. I didn't want to write one, but I also didn't want to see her hurt.  I couldn't understand why she didn't care about me. Why did she hate me so much.  I think that even until the end the disgust that she had for me was evident and I will never understand why. I don't miss her, but I miss that I don't have a mom.  I miss that i don't have a person who I can go to for anything.  I miss the fact that there is no one person I could go to with anything.  All the words that she never spoke to me became very clear when my brother was the sole beneficiary of her life insurance.  Just the fact that she completely removed me, that said more than any words could possibly convey.  She hated me and the person that I was.  So today I am alone doing all the things that need to get done and my heart is breaking, that things are the way they are.  Mariska is at work.  Vincent still in his room and here I sit, tears flowing knowing that there are things I need to get done.  Maybe someday things will change maybe someday things can level out and everything won't be so difficult. It's rainy, lots of thunder and that is exactly how my weary soul feels right now.  

I heart your heart. 

First year of Grad classes

Today was the last day of year one of grad school.  There are so many thoughts and feelings, and I am desperately trying to put them in some kind of order to get them out.  I am learning that I have come from a different place than many classmates. I feel everything to the fullest and that is a blessing and a curse.  Yalom is someone whose work that I admire. He has a gentle spirit and has so much knowledge.  In out last group counseling class, we watched Yalom's cure.  There were so many moments of truth, in that one piece of work. It shows you who he is as a person.  It was deeply moving, and so important.  He explored so many different aspects of himself, of the counseling profession.  I love these people I spend my Saturdays with, they have a desire to help others, to make a difference.  

I feel like I have been saying this so often lately, but from where I come from, I have a different understanding of life, of the little things.  From where I have come from things have more meaning and I want them more.  For me this counseling degree is more than a dream come true, but a way for me to give meaning to the things that have happened to me.   I understand the importance of simply riding his bike.  I understand the silence of staring at the sea.  I understand those things to my very core.  Where I have come from, I see and experience the world very different.  I hope that I am learning that this isn't a bad thing, it is just a fact of life. I can remember someone telling me to fake it until I make it.  No, I am who I am who I am.  If you can't be around the person that I am, that is on you.  

I cried my first class this semester and I also cried the last class.  I tried so hard not to.  I was rehearsing in my head what I was going to say.  As soon as she called on me, it started.  I have come so far.  I have been hurt so deeply.  for me this is giving meaning to the most hurtful things in my life, it is making sure that others get to experience things, that I didn't get to experience.  This means the world to me and to be here in a place that I have longed for is pretty unbelievable. 

I heart your heart.