child abuse

13 weeks (and one less job)

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I’ve made it 13 weeks. Thirteen grueling weeks.

I spent most of today laying in bed, and by most, I mean I just got out of bed about 10 minutes ago. I was that physically and mentally exhausted. I should be at work right now, but I can’t work there any more. I made it three days before I realized what a bad decision it was.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the physical demands of the job. The job itself was easy; probably a little too easy. It was a popular baby store. It didn’t even cross my mind that there would ever be an issue for me. My therapist asked me before I started the job if I was sure being in that environment wasn’t going to be triggering to me. I didn’t think it was, so I brushed it off as a non-issue. I didn’t have any problems the first day because I was in the back doing training. The second day was slow and I was kind of out of it a little, but I bounced back. Yesterday was a nightmare. I lost complete control. I couldn’t stop crying; it got so bad sometimes I had to run to the bathroom. The nausea was so intense, I thought for sure I was going to puke. I felt like I was floating away. I don’t even think I heard half of what was going on, I was just trying so hard to make it through the night. It is exhausting trying to stay grounded for a few minutes. Imagine trying to stay grounded for a few hours.

When I finally made it home, I broke down completely. I couldn’t stop crying. I could barely open my eyes because my face was so swollen. I couldn’t handle being bombarded with all of these happy families, with mothers proudly holding their babies and toddlers. What happened to me that my mother hated me so much from the start? What did I do that these children didn’t? Why did I miss out? I won’t ever be able to experience what it’s like to be loved by a mother, or even by a family. And now I was being constantly reminded of it every few minutes at work. It just wasn’t going to work out.

My roommate heard me crying and made me open the door. By this time it was well after 11 o’clock at night. I was so exhausted, which just made me cry even more. My roommate tried to comfort me. She told me I didn’t have to work there if it was going to mess up all of the progress I’ve made (what progress?). She said I wasn’t a failure if I quit. But I wasn’t having it. Still crying. She took me outside for some air and a cigarette (smoking used to be one of the few things that calmed my nerves before I quit). We tried to figure out the best way to go about it. She said she would go there for me and explain everything if I wanted her to. Instead, she called me out of work today just so I could have a day to think. I was finally able to stop crying, or it could have just been that I ran out of tears. We came inside and she told me to stay and watch a movie to clear my head a little bit.

By 1:30, I had been awake more than 21 hours and I knew I couldn’t fight it anymore, so I went upstairs. I checked my e-mail and saw that my therapist had e-mailed me back. I e-mailed her in the middle of my breakdown out of desperation. I must say, it’s a privilege not only to have a therapist who willingly deals with my shit, but also one who answers e-mails at 1 o’clock in the morning. Some of the things she wrote were the same things my roommate was trying to tell me. She wrote that it is not a failure to admit that this work isn’t the best place for me right now, and that I’m still grieving the loss of the family I never had.

“Success is not rigidly adhering to a plan that is not working.  Your mental health is more important than that particular job, and for you, I would count a decision to value yourself and your healing process as a success. There are other jobs you can take.  There is only one Crystalie, and she is worth protecting.”

I’m still having trouble seeing this as a success. I’ve never had to quit a job before, let alone quit one like this with no notice. I don’t even think I can tell them face-to-face because I will just break down again. I considered writing a note and slipping it under the door tomorrow while the store is closed so I don’t have to see anyone. I just don’t want anyone to hold it against me. I don’t expect them to understand. I don’t expect anyone to understand. I don’t even understand it myself. Things like this shouldn’t bother me. I shouldn’t have to leave a job because I can’t mentally handle being there. This isn’t me. This isn’t who I should be.

So now I need to reassess my life once again. I am going to take a couple of weeks and figure out what the hell I can do to survive, because this isn’t going to work long-term. I absolutely refuse assistance of any kind. I am capable of working. I am capable of supporting myself. I don’t want help. I just want to be normal. I want to be able to experience the world without experiencing a flashback, or a breakdown, or dissociation.

My heart hurts more than anything right now.

I just want the pain to go away.

A question of worth

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I fell into a dark place while in therapy yesterday.

I’m still sort of there, hanging on with one arm, with my head turned over my shoulder and looking into the darkness, waiting for the moment I lose my grip.

My therapist asked me to come up with some positive things I could do for myself, and some things we could do in therapy to help transition from dealing with trauma to going back into the real world. My mind just went blank. I looked around the room aimlessly, stared at my hands, stared at the floor…I even closed my eyes hoping an answer would come into my mind. But nothing came. This wasn’t the first time. Any time she asks me these types of questions, I draw a blank. It shouldn’t be this hard to come up with answers. What is wrong with me?

After several sighs and “I don’t know”s, my therapist finally asked me if I believed I was worthy of these things. No. Sometimes I struggle with believing I am worthy enough to be breathing, let alone to be engaging in any remotely positive things. Then I felt myself sinking. I managed to stay grounded for the most part, but I felt like I reverted right back to being my mother’s child. I apologized profusely, which is a habit of mine. I feel like I am constantly bothering other people, and am compelled to apologize for it. I just kept telling my therapist that it was all my fault. Something was wrong with me. Something must be wrong with me. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. My therapist kept trying to convince me that it wasn’t, but I know it was. She mentioned the possibility of my parents being mentally ill. Could a person (specifically my mother) be mentally ill and still appear so normal on the outside? That doesn’t even matter anyway. It was still my fault. I was the only one treated that badly. The defect lies in me.

I grew up believing my purpose in this life was to be abused. I had no self-worth. I have no self-worth now. It’s hard for me to accept when people say something positive because I question their intentions; it’s just not something I’m used to. My therapist asked me if I believed the things she said about me. I said she had to say those things because she was my therapist. When she said that she said those things because they were true and because she cared, my immediate response was “please don’t care about me.” I don’t want people to care. I needed people to care years ago when I was a child in desperate need of saving. Now I am adult who has lost the ability to trust people. Part of that is due to being raised to believe no one could be trusted, and part of that is due to witnessing the actions (or lack thereof) of people in my life when it came to what was happening to me.

Trust no one, fear everything, don’t talk, you’re evil…these are programs that have been downloaded into me since childhood that I have yet to be able to delete. They are like those programs on your computer that run in the background and you don’t even realize that they’re there; they are automatic, and they’re always taking up space. How can I ever feel like I am worth anything when these thoughts are constantly running in the background of my mind? How can I be worth anything when I am so incredibly damaged?

Missing pieces

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

When I first moved here, I would go out on my back porch every night and sit and look at the stars. It was something I was never able to do back home. There was just something so amazing about looking into a vast sky with millions (billions?) of stars, wondering how many people were out there looking at the same stars as I was. But I don’t go out on the porch at night anymore, and I stopped looking at the stars.

In the beginning, I was full of hope and excitement, and running on a rush of adrenaline. Now, I’m coming to realize all that I’ve lost along the way during this transition. Pieces of me are missing. I feel incomplete.

It may be hard for some to understand, but when I was at home, I always held out hope that someday something would change…that someday, my family would become different people and the void in my heart would be filled and I would finally be whole. But now that I’ve moved away, I’ve lost that chance forever. I’ve been trying to fill the void with things that just can’t occupy that space in someone’s heart that is meant for family. I left them. I walked away and I took that chance to fill that void away from myself for good.

It’s not just the loss of my parents. It’s the loss of my entire family. It will never be the same again. I can never see my grandmother; she’s already fallen for their lies about me. My brother is too far brainwashed. Other members of my family don’t want to get involved. They don’t come to visit me, even if they are a quick drive away. I feel incredibly isolated from the people I should be closest to. Your family makes up part of your identity. So what do you do when that part of you is gone? I don’t even feel like I belong in this name anymore.

Then there are my friends. The ones I was closest to back home. The ones that now barely reach out to me, and the ones that haven’t bothered to visit me. I can feel what were once my strongest relationships now fading farther and farther away into the distance. I didn’t expect our friendships to remain the same, but I didn’t expect them to grow so far apart so quickly, either.

Then there are the quiet supporter friends: the ones that support me in private, but when I need them to stand up and fight with me, they are nowhere to be found. Then I am left alone to fight battles I don’t want to fight. It reminds me of the people in my life that knew I was being abused and chose to do nothing because they “didn’t want to get involved.” Not getting involved never solves anything.

People have changed the way they treat me. I’m not a child. I’m not made of glass that can be easily broken at the slightest touch. I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I haven’t been able to make real decisions for the last 29 years of my life. Now I want to make them. I need to learn for myself how to make them. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t all good; no one’s decisions are all good. That’s called life. I’m no different from anyone else; I just have a little catching up to do.

It’s a little sad that the only person that I’ve come to depend on (aside from my therapist) is my roommate. My roommate…a woman I met off of Craigslist right before I moved. She barely knows me. She has no obligation to know me. Yet hers is the shoulder I cry on when I become overwhelmed. She is the one who holds my arms down when I dissociate and start scratching myself. And she is the one who sits with me when I don’t feel safe enough to be alone. She, a person unrelated to me and completely unknown to me until a few months ago, now burdened with dealing with me.

The nights that my roommate is not here, I have no one. Those nights are the worst for me; tonight is one of those nights. I often wonder if this is what my life will be like forever. Loneliness. Even Charlie is quiet. It makes me miss his angry ramblings just a little. He probably feels just as lonely as I do.

For so long, I defined myself based on the relationships I had with others. It was part of who I was. Those relationships mattered. And now those pieces of me are going missing, and I don’t know what to do. No family, dwindling friendships, and a lack of identity. I feel empty. It’s no wonder I don’t know who my parts really are. I don’t even know who I am.