I feel like a marionette. Each string is a connection to my life, a piece of who I am. I need those strings to perform. I need those strings to live. But those strings are thin and weak; they started out that way. I started my life out with a disadvantage.
But I continued to perform, I continued to live even with those weak strings. Now I’ve lost so many strings that all I can do is sit there and twitch a few limbs, waiting for that last string to break, the moment when I lose myself completely.
Some of my strings, I cut away myself. I had to. My parents were not supportive strings. They had to go. They were taking complete control over everything. The other strings couldn’t work right. I needed some freedom.
In doing that, I weakened some of my other strings. The strings of people who I thought were there for me, they ended up snapping. They were only helping me alongside my parents’ strings. Once my parents’ strings were gone, so too were those others.
And then the strings of people in my old life, my friends and acquaintances. I feel them weakening as time goes on. Some of them have broken already. Some are splintering, seconds away from complete disconnection. I look up and see the damage, but there’s nothing I can do. So I have to watch as my strings continue to break away.
The strings of people I called my family – they are weakening, too; they were weak this whole time. I’m seeing now that those strings are not supporting me. They are there. I can see them. Everyone on the outside can see them. They appear to be strong, maybe a little colorful, but it’s all for show. They are not doing anything for me. They’re just there.
There’s one strong string. That is the string of my therapist. She’s holding me upright, even as all of the strings around me are snapping and breaking away.
But now that I’ve lost all of my other strings, all of my other resources, And I have nothing left to help her; I have nothing else left to help me.
Soon, that string will be cut from me. And I will have nothing. My supports will be gone, and nothing will be there to hold me up anymore. So I’ll fall to the ground, limp and lifeless.
I’ll no longer have a purpose.
Life Without Hurt 
This was beautifully written.
sl
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Thank you. It was difficult emotionally to write.
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I understood that but did not want to invalidate your feelings thank you for finding her age to write it
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Are you saying here that you will not have your therapist soon?
My response to your post has turned into an essay. So much of your situation speaks to me. I need to write this response for me as much as I want to respond to you. But I’m wondering and worrying that I’m being “preachy” here and inappropriate. You don’t need “answers” from me or anyone. Your call. I understand completely if I’ve gone on too much and you don’t want to post this. So, here goes; this is what I want to say:
There is another string. It’s the most important one. It’s your Self.
You feel like a marionette, because you were disempowered and controlled by your family. But you are not actually a marionette.
As much as you at times don’t feel that you have a Self, that Self is in you and shines through in your writing and in the resilience you have shown in the face of horrible suffering. That Self is the only string that matters. It is your core, your roots, your wings, your life force. With care and tending it is a strong, thick rope — it is our fibre. It is within all of us.
Just like the tiny acorn holds within it the life force of the mighty oak tree, all of us have a life force too. This is the rope that is our core. You weren’t tended to when you were young but the seed of the thread, your life force, has always been in you and has never left you. It’s what got you got out of the prison and torture chamber of that so-called “home” you had to live in with your so-called “family”. (I say this because of course “home” is the love we have within the walls, and not the walls themselves, just as “family” is the love we share and not the people).
Keep loving yourself, keep caring for yourself, keep tending to yourself, and — very important — keep maintaining your safety. Your core needs all of that — protection included — to grow and become strong (just like a little green shoot coming out of the earth needs sunlight and watering and sometimes a fence around it).
Out of that, you — me, all of us — will grow in the mighty oak that already lives within us.
One day at a time. One tiny moment at a time.
Sending you my best,
A.
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I’ve run out of resources and won’t be financially able to keep going to therapy. All of my support system is gone, so I’m sort of stuck in that. People I thought would help me have not. So I feel like I’m just going to lose everything.
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I’ve been in that place — alone and out of external resources. It’s tough. I don’t know if you have a spiritual life — and that doesn’t have to include a traditional “God” — but that’s something I’ve found to be a resource when it seems like there’s nothing and no one. Nature and all of us I feel are connected somehow.
Can you approach some community organizations for support? Now might be the time.
Have you spoken with your therapist about this? She will have suggestions.
You have this blogosphere for moral support.
One tiny moment at a time. Breathe.
You have some pretty awesome talents and inner resources and I’m rooting for you. And praying for you.
A.
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Have you thought about disability? Would that give you some money for therapy?
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Disability would give me less income than I get just working. Even then, it takes so long to get approved, and I don’t have very much of a paper trail, so to speak.
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