As I get further in my therapy I find that the walls I have spent years building are coming down and it is terrifying. When I was a kid growing up I was overly emotional. Most people who witnessed this display had no idea what I was going through at home or what was happening in my life. My feelings would get hurt really easily. I was very raw emotionally and fragile....for good reason....but as a kid you don't really examine that in your fellow kids. So I got teased A LOT for crying when I was sad or my feelings were hurt among other things. No one helped me, teachers wouldn't lift a finger....they just let everything run it's course. So I would cry, kids would tease, and I would go home and cry some more because people were so mean and hurtful. I felt powerless. They call it bullying now. Back in those days it was considered kids being kids I guess. Teachers were indifferent. But hey, I got through it eventually. I didn't make a habit of crying in public as I got older of course. When I was with my now ex-husband he would be incredibly cruel to me and yes I would cry. I would cry a lot. In public when he would say hurtful things to me I would tear up but I struggled to never cry. Anyone in that situation would want to cry. The things that were said and done were wrong, incredibly hurtful. I am a human being with feelings so naturally when I was hurt I would cry. But I was working on developing a thick skin, even then.
When things went south for the last time with my husband and the pain was beyond anything I could handle I started building a wall. I reinforced that wall with brick, mortar, steel, and a force field miles away from my heart. Building a wall protects your heart but it also insulates it from all of the good things. The joy of life. The only hurt I allowed myself was the death of my parents. There was no way to keep that pain out. Nor could I keep hurt and pain out when my kids were hurting. Once upon a time I would get emotional at sad movies or really sweet happy endings. With the walls I built that became a thing of the past. I found myself unable to feel much of the empathy that I had always felt for others. Therapy has changed that and it scares the hell out of me. I think I started changing even before I started therapy, but therapy has opened the floodgates. I try to remember that it is OK to cry, it is OK to "feel" things. I find myself getting emotional watching movies now and it has been a really long time since I have felt this way. My ex-fiance would try to get me to cry when I was upset and all that did was make me dig in my heals and refuse to cry. Crying for me meant weakness, vulnerability. When I was in elementary school it meant teasing and bullying. When I was married it meant being vulnerable to a sadist who loved to make me cry. So to do this now is VERY scary to me. I don't know how to control it which is particularly scary for me.
Soon I will be going back to work and then I will have to learn how to control it in a hurry. It is a bad job to have in this condition. I don't know what these long forgotten emotions will mean for my life. I do know that I am not enjoying being hurt and I have been feeling hurt recently by silly little things that I should just let go. But it is making me aware that the feelings and emotions are coming back into my life. I don't know what to do with them right now. I know that I need to "feel" because without feeling sadness or empathy I can't feel love and joy. I am trying to have a new resolve in my life as well. I am resolved to live and not care what others think of me. I have to be true to myself and remember to let some things go, even though it is hard and the pain is still there. Is this forgiveness I wonder? I don't know. But I know that I don't have many years left on this earth and I don't want to waste them in sorrow and pain. I want my love of life back.
When I was growing up I always put on a happy face and people mistook that happy face for being happy. I learned that from my mother. But I was very unhappy, as was she. I don't want to "put on" a happy face. I want to be happy and have my face show it naturally! So I think that I shall make that my "new years resolution". To be happy inside and out. Embrace emotions. To cry when I am sad and laugh when I am happy. To just be me, for better or worse. It may not garner me a lot of friends, but the friends I have will know me and appreciate me for who I am whether I am happy or sad, joyous or mad. At heart I am a good person whether some people think so or not, accept it or not, it is the truth and I will no longer let others deter me from it.
Damn if it's not one thing it's another. Trying to balance life and deal with things that are not under my control. Teetering on losing everything. Just so tired of fighting to stay alive when life is determined to kill me. Life is such an asshole! If life was an actual person, he'd be a bully, a BIG one! I wish life WAS a person, then maybe I'd have more of a chance. But right now? Nope not a one.
Been having problems financially, thanks to being on disability and also because my roommate, who happens to be my daughter, has borrowed money that she can't pay back right now.....well right now happens to be rent time. So I couldn't pay it, I had 5 days to pay it and had hoped that I could squeeze one or two more days and then get the money in there by the time the check cleared the bank. Ya see I had to re-up my disability and there were time delays, some my fault, and some because I couldn't get an appointment with my doctor in time. Well I got the paperwork over to my other doctor who took care of it right away. The problem is that it threw off my disability payments, so now I get paid on a different day and it has thrown all of my bills off. Rent being one of them. Well tonight I got a notice saying that I had to pay the rent within three days or surrender possession of the residence, ie: my apartment. Well I had planned on paying it, BUT they are telling me I HAVE to give them a cashiers check. Well #1, the 3rd day, Saturday....I MIGHT have my check if I'm lucky....but the credit union is closed on Saturday and they are the only one I would be able to get the cashiers check from. Unless I get a money order, I guess I could do that....IF my check gets here on Saturday...if it doesn't, what the hell am I supposed to do? Lose this little place? Be homeless? Be the typical mental disorder casualty? Great. Actually I know my son would take me in. But with all that he is going through right now, I really don't want to do that to him. Although on the other hand they need the money that my rent could pay them....but that would leave my youngest daughter with no where to go, unless he took her in too.....not sure that he would want to do that. I know his wife doesn't want me to live there and I don't blame her I guess. Truthfully I don't know that I want to live there anyway....
I am on the verge of losing my storage units with all of my stuff....I have a couple of "opposition to lien"sales things to fill out....but they want me to send them back "certified mail". I don't have the money to send them back. I might be able to get the money to send ONE, but both? I'd have to send them in the same envelope, which I know they don't want me to do....but I don't have a choice. Cashiers Checks, Certified Mail....all of these things because I can't pay...I'm on disability that doesn't cover every bill as it is....yet somehow I am supposed to pay extra money just to tell them I can't pay or in the rent case, to pay something that I couldn't pay on time....great! Life is just kicking my ass at the worst possible time. Really. This sucks more than I can say. What I had to kind of chuckle at is the fact that the rent notice that I got says to actually pay a smaller amount, by less than a dollar, of what I usually pay....what is up with that?????
Well anyway, just kinda had to write this as I feel like the world wants me to leave....I was talking to a friend last night (on the internet, I can't talk on the phone) we worked together at the place I'm on disability leave from. She told me a lot of things that lead me to believe something that I've already suspected. I am probably going to get fired soon after getting back. Nothing personal, but it's a big bank and frankly they can be real assholes when it comes to their employees. Especially when the employee is not there, no matter what the reason, no matter how much back-up you may have.....they will find a way. In these economic times, it's pretty easy to get someone to fill your job. But it also bothers the question, "WHY are they always hiring people?".....it is because they are always firing people, most of it is ridiculous no heart type firings OR the employees quit, because they can't take it anymore. It is a bad place to be in.
Right now I find myself crying pretty much every day. My emotions are just under the surface. Which is actually a good thing, because I have been denying my emotions and not showing them for a very long time. The problem is....it makes me very fragile emotionally. That in turn is making my life very tough right now, not to mention the fact that I need to get another job. But it also shows that my therapy is working. Although I have been set back, I am still learning things and making progress. So even with my progress having been set back, it will still progress....
This is the life of the mentally ill. We do our best and even then there are so many things beyond our control. In a better mindset we could probably handle it. But when you are fragile, like I feel right now......it is a very dangerous and precarious place to be. I DO NOT like it, nor do I recommend it. I can only try to keep from totally losing my mind. If I lose it, I am done forever.....So every single day I fight and fight and fight.....and it sucks. I can only hope that there is indeed a light at the end of this fucked up tunnel.....
****WARNING**** Video is of one of my favorite shows: Dexter, which airs on Showtime. Beware, the video has a lot of blood, it traces the murder of Dexter's mother when he was a young child.
Video is from YouTube. This song is pretty great for someone like me.... "despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage"
