trauma

Beneath the Fat

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

Are you sure you aren’t diabetic?

You don’t look like you’re starving.

You shouldn’t be eating that.

Not hungry? I find that hard to believe.

You should lose some weight, then you won’t be so sick.

These are just some of the things that people have said to me over the years — most of them said more than once.

I get the diabetes assumption quite a bit. When I had surgery to repair my Lisfranc, I had a nurse ask me SIX times if I was sure I wasn’t diabetic. Six. Times. I understand asking is standard procedure, but asking six times because you just can’t get over your assumption that my weight must mean I’m diabetic is not standard procedure. That bothered me. 

And then there’s the people who see you eating a cookie and tell you that you should be watching your sugar. Why? I’m not diabetic. Never was. But thank you, because now I feel horrible for eating.

You don’t look like you’re starving. This goes right along with not believing I’m not hungry. I’ve had people I considered friends say this to me when I told them I didn’t really eat much. It’s not funny. It’s frustrating. Starvation isn’t always skin and bones. Starvation doesn’t always have an obvious “look”. Trust me, I’ve experienced it. Sometimes forced upon me, and sometimes self-induced. But no one sees the lanugo growing on my body or the rampant malnutrition running through the blood in my veins. They just see my weight and assume I must sit at home all day and eat.

You shouldn’t be eating that. This comes from so many people, friends and strangers. I once had a coworker scold me for eating a Poptart; it was the first thing I had eaten in days. Needless to say, that was the last thing I ate for a while, because what he said made me feel ashamed for thinking I should eat. 

I’m on a high-sodium, high-protein diet for health reasons, and people have felt the need to comment about me adding salt to my food or eating meat. It’s not good for you! Your blood pressure. Well, actually, it is good for me, because my blood pressure is low. I know, it’s hard to believe. Because all you see is my weight.

I am not in the best of health. There’s no denying that. But when you hear about it, don’t jump to the conclusion that I am suffering because I’m fat. I don’t have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol. I didn’t get lung disease from being overweight. My autonomic nervous system didn’t turn to shit because I’m fat. I can’t fix my health with diet, because it’s not fixable.

People look at me and see the fat. They see I’m overweight. They see me struggling. So they make assumptions. Dangerous assumptions. Hurtful assumptions.

They don’t know that I am literally half the size I was just a few years ago. They don’t know I spent time in the hospital because I was severely malnourished from not eating. They weren’t there when I tediously calculated every calorie I took in, making sure I would not go above 500 in one day. They don’t see the concern in my doctor’s eyes whenever I get weighed and have lost too much weight too rapidly.

They don’t know how much I struggle some days just to eat. They don’t see me weigh myself every morning obsessively, trying to determine if I deserve to eat that day. They don’t hear the inner battle I have to go through before I sit down to eat a meal. They’re not there when people who care tell me I need to eat because they know it’s been too long.

They just see the fat.

They don’t see the eating disorder ravaging beneath.

It’s been so easy for me to deny I have a problem, because it’s been so easy for me to hide the truth beneath the surface. Other people’s beliefs became my words. Whenever I’d get feedback or suggestions that I had an eating disorder, I’d just tell them I don’t have an eating disorder; I’m fat. I’m not starving; I’m fat. I’m fine; I’m fat.

I got so angry months ago when the PHP I was in diagnosed me with ED-NOS, atypical anorexia nervosa. I don’t have a problem. I don’t look like I’m starving, so just leave me alone. Why couldn’t they just be like everyone else and only see what I was on the outside? Why did they have to dig deeper? Why did they have to be worried when no one else was?

It took me some time to realize my anger was displaced. As much as I wanted to be angry at the program for giving me the diagnosis, I was really angry at everyone who refused to see my struggle, everyone who made it harder for me to cope with my ED because they couldn’t see past my outward appearance, everyone who purposefully and not-so-purposefully contributed to my guilt about eating.

I’m not your typical person with anorexia. There’s a lot of things about me that just don’t fit the norm. And that’s fine, because nothing in my life has ever been typical. It’s hard for people to understand that. I only understand because I’ve had to.

It’s difficult in general when you struggle with an ED. It’s even more difficult when you add people and ignorance into the mix. All of those comments about my weight and what I should or shouldn’t eat only made it harder for me to recover. They made me believe that I still wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t thin enough. I wasn’t worthy enough. I’m not enough. Every time I managed to take three steps in the right direction, someone would make a comment and push me back six steps in the wrong direction. It’s a vicious cycle that continues to hinder my healing.

I’m still struggling. I think I may always struggle a bit. There are days when I manage to eat like a “normal” person. But there are still days when I conveniently forget to eat. There’s still days when I self-sabotage. It’s been difficult for me since I got sick. I’m not able to move around like I used to. The medication I have to take causes water retention and weight gain. I think of ways I can counteract it all, ways that really aren’t healthy, ways that will only end up hurting me even more.

It was much easier for me to sit there and self-destruct when I had no one who cared enough to stop it. It’s not so easy now.

And I know that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make the struggle any easier, and it doesn’t erase the shame. I’m still scared of myself. I’m still afraid of the thoughts that go through my head, the fear of gaining weight that eats me up from the inside. I’ve been taught to attribute my worth as a human being to my weight and my actions, and I’m not sure how to remedy that when it seems to be ingrained in a part of my brain I can’t seem to access.

This was all so much easier when no one saw what I hid beneath the fat.

POTS, Not Pans

~ KJ ~ 14 Comments

Part of my hesitance in going to the doctor is because I don’t want any more diagnoses. I feel like I have enough. Hell, even disability forms have spaces for 10 diagnoses, and I had already exceeded that. I don’t want any more diagnoses. I don’t need any more problems.

As much improvement as I’ve made in seeking out medical help, as soon as the possibility of something more comes up, I push it so far back into purposeful forgetfulness in the hope that it will never come up again. I did it last month when I attended a COPD support group. The respiratory specialist pulled me aside after group, asked me a few questions about my history, and recommended I come back to be tested for Cystic Fibrosis. She seemed concerned. I told her I would come back; I never did.

It’s a lot easier to forget shit when it doesn’t affect you every day. I’ve had breathing issues most of my life. I’m used to it.

What I’m not used to is passing out onto the floor. That I can’t forget. The concussions. The bruises. The people who have to surround me when I get up because they all know I’m going to end up on the ground unless they catch me. The very thing that led to me losing my job.

I thought I had answers, at least in part. Clearly something was off with my heart rhythm. They said it was an arrhythmia. They just couldn’t tell me which one. That’s why I had the cardiac implant. It was going to tell me what was wrong with my heart.

So when I went to my cardiologist appointment on Tuesday, I was fully expecting a simple answer. Just tell me what arrhythmia it is. Just tell me how we can fix it. I need to work again. I need to be normal.

But that’s not how the appointment turned out. The doctor scanned through the information from my monitor. I had the PACs and PVCs as suspected. He could have prescribed a beta blocker to help regulate my rhythm, but because of my age, he thought the risks were greater than the benefits. But even with that, the irregularities weren’t enough to cause my consistent passing out.

The cardiologist sat there and started to tell me there was nothing left that he could do, that he ran all of the tests he could and none of them could fully explain my symptoms. He brought up seeing a neurologist to rule out seizures, but I knew these weren’t seizures. I knew that something was wrong. But I felt defeated. All I could say was okay.

But my friend is not like me. She was not about to back down and say okay and leave my doctor’s office without any real answers. And I think the doctor realized that. So he brought up more things, some fancy words, but still nothing concrete. He mentioned something about blood pressure, and I told him well that’s complicated in itself. He asked me to explain. I reminded him that’s what led me back to him in the first place, when the PHP program found an irregularity in my blood pressure — high in one arm, low in the other. Drastically low at times.

Something must have clicked in my doctor’s mind, because he told us to follow him to his office. He pulled up my records on his computer. And the more my friend described what was happening to me, the more firm he felt in his belief about the diagnosis.

I have POTS: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It explains why my heart rate can go from the 30s to the 130s in a matter of minutes just from moving. It explains why I pass out when I stand up, or after I’ve been sitting down for a long time. It explains why my head gets so foggy sometimes out of nowhere. It explains why my blood pressure changes so drastically. POTS explains that all.

I got an answer. A diagnosis. But it’s not an easy one. In reality, I would rather my issue just have been an arrhythmia. They are easy to fix. Simple. POTS isn’t so simple. POTS isn’t so easy to fix. And when you really start to look into it, it’s only a piece of a much larger puzzle. Because POTS is never just POTS. POTS is a part of a larger problem.

POTS is one form of Dysautonomia. A big word, but basically it’s the dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which controls all of the automatic processes in the body: heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, and temperature control. It’s also the system responsible for the fight-or-flight response. The system that’s been overworked since I’ve been born.

So much makes sense now, and not just the passing out. People with Dysautonomia can have problems with malnutrition. They can have trouble regulating their temperature. It explains why I always end up vitamin and protein deficient even when I’m eating right. It explains why I can’t feel temperatures like everyone else can, why I don’t realize when it’s too hot or too cold. It explains why I can’t always feel pain when something is hurt, and when I don’t realize I am sick when I’m really sick. The system that’s responsible for the basic necessities of life is broken.

There’s no direct link between Dysautonomia and trauma, but I can’t help but think that there’s a connection. The very system that plays a role in the body’s response to trauma is the same system affected by these conditions.

Maybe the autonomic nervous system is like a car. A car only lasts for a certain amount of mileage before it starts to break down; that’s how it’s designed. If you drive it a lot, it’s going to break down faster.

What if that’s how the ANS was designed? Maybe it’s supposed to last a good 80 years of regular use. But when it’s overused, when trauma happens and it’s constantly activated for years and years, it breaks down faster. Because the human body wasn’t designed to endure consistent trauma. It’s why trauma survivors rarely suffer from just the psychological effects of what happened to them. There’s physical damage, too.

It frustrates me in more ways than one. Another diagnosis, and one that I can’t ignore. And even though there are things I have to do now — take medication, increase my salt and fluids, wear compression socks to push the blood back to my heart — it’s not a cure. I’m still going to pass out. I’m still going to be affected. It’s another disabling condition.

I sat in my cardiologist’s office in wavering denial. My friend asked him about my ability to work, how no one wants to employ someone who’s going to pass out like I do. She asked him straight out if I could work, and he wouldn’t give a straight answer. He circled around to talking about keeping myself safe. He wouldn’t tell me what I really wanted to hear.

It’s another diagnosis I didn’t need.

She follows me

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

She follows me.

A monster with eyes all around.

She sees everything.

She is everywhere.

I try to hide, but she finds me.

 

She follows me.

No choice to make. No chance to flee.

I beg her please, just don’t hurt me.

But she doesn’t listen.She breaks me.

 

She follows me.

Attaching to me

Like a leech attaching to skin.

Feeding off my blood

Sucking out the last bit of my soul.

 

She follows me.

Into my body now.

She is a part of me.

Tearing me up from the inside.

Never stopping, never letting go.

 

She follows me.

I cannot stop her.

I cannot stop the pain.

I let it be.

Hoping one day she will let me free.

 

She follows me.

Too weak to fight.

I try to run.

Run for my life.

Now I am free.

 

But she still follows me.

She infiltrates my dreams

and turns them into nightmares.

She lives on every day

Inside of me, my body and my mind.

 

She follows me.

Inside my head

Her voice yelling at me

Telling me everything wrong

Telling me to pay for my sins.

 

She follows me.

She reads my words,

watches my life.

She won’t leave me alone.

She won’t let me be free.

 

She follows me.

Like a storm cloud

raining on my life.

I can’t see the light.

She blocks it from me.

 

She follows me.

I will never be safe.

No matter where I am.

She is there.

Breaking me, killing me.

 

She follows me.

And I cannot escape.

Strength

~ KJ ~ 10 Comments

I am strong.

My strength has gotten me through life, and allowed me to continue beating impossible odds.

My strength allowed me to get through my childhood, broken but still alive.

My strength got me to get out of bed every morning, even when I knew the day would inevitably bring me  pain.

My strength carried me through to the day I finally escaped — the day that I needed all of the strength in the world to bring me to freedom.

Strength helped me walk away, run away, far away.

And my strength helps me still today, as I continue to choose to live rather than to die.

I’m not sure where my strength came from. Is it something inside me? Is it in my heart or in my head? Or does it flow through my body like a life force within me? I don’t know where it came from, or even where it is right now. But I know it’s there, helping me fight, helping me stand up when it is so much easier to just lay down and concede.

I share this strength with others every day. I share my story with the world; the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. Because my strength isn’t always so easy to see. But they can see it, sometimes more than I can see it myself. When I feel weak, I am reminded of the strength it took for me to get away. Incredible strength, that not everyone has, but I have it. I always had it. And now my strength gives others hope that they can be strong, too — that they can survive even when it seems impossible.

I used to hate the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” because I believed my experiences showed weakness, not strength. I was standing, breathing, bleeding, but I was dead inside. That wasn’t strength. Strong people don’t feel the way I felt for so long. Strong people don’t feel at all.

But I was strong. My experiences may have knocked me down, but they did not kill me. They made me come back to life stronger than ever, with a will to live and the ability to share that will with the world, to change lives for the better.

My strength gives me hope, even when everything seems hopeless.

Strength is not about winning the battle. It’s about fighting, even when the odds are against you.

I wrote this in group today. I’m not even sure where it came from. I stared at the paper for a while before I even started to write, completely at a loss for words.

What specific attribute, quality, or skill distinguishes you from everyone else? How did you come to develop it? What positive things has it brought to your life? How are you able to share it with others?

What distinguishes me? Nothing. My thoughts automatically went to thinking that I was less than human. Unworthy. How could an unworthy person have anything special about them?

After 10 minutes or so, I started to think of things other people told me about me. I recalled many people speaking of my strength. Oddly, in those moments, I never saw myself as strong. I’d nod my head in agreement, yet inside my head, I was discrediting everything they were saying. I struggle with accepting positive things because I became so accustomed to hearing the negative that positive seems like a foreign concept to me.

I wrote down I am strong. Then it was like something clicked in me. I kept on writing without even thinking of what was coming out on paper. And I ended up with this.

Even after it was done, part of me wanted to rip it up. It doesn’t make any sense. No one will understand this. It’s horrible. I hesitated sharing it with the group because I believed the same thoughts I was having in my head were thoughts that they were going to have as well. Part of me was ashamed.

But I tried to stop the judgments. I took a breath and read it out loud. Even as my voice trembled and my legs and hands shook from anxiety, I read it through until the end. There was something different about reading the words out loud. I wanted to cry, but I held it in. This was my truth, spoken out loud. I made myself vulnerable. I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to share.

But I did, and that alone is an example of strength.

I need to go

~ KJ ~ 15 Comments

It was just supposed to be a regular doctor’s appointment.

I wanted to see if my doctor would change some of my inhalers, since my recent hospital visits indicate that something isn’t working right.

I was still sick on Monday, but I didn’t think anything of it. I took the train ride down and walked a mile to my doctor’s office. No problem. I made it just fine. I was still standing.

After a few minutes of waiting in the waiting room, the nurse called me back to the room. She took my vitals, and asked if I was okay. Of course I’m okay. I’m just here to change my meds.

The nurse practitioner came in, listened to my lungs, then left the room. Well, then.

A minute later, the nurse came back with an oxygen tank. Then the nurse practitioner came in. “You need to go to the hospital.“

I sat there, completely shocked. I just came for a followup. This was not in my planning. I had work in a few hours. I needed to get out of here so I could catch the train back home. I don’t have time for the hospital. I don’t have time for this.

But I didn’t have a choice. There was no air exchange in my lower lungs. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I ended up being taken by ambulance to the emergency room, in a hospital I had never been to, 40 minutes away from my home.

I couldn’t focus on anything but the time. If I could just get this over with, I can still make it to work. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. I haven’t passed out. These people are just overreacting. I am fine. I can walk. I can talk. I am fine.

But I wasn’t fine. The breathing treatments hadn’t helped. The IV steroids weren’t helping enough. My oxygen was still too low, and they had to admit me. It was then that the panic started to set in. Once they wheeled me to my room upstairs, I started to lose it. The emergency room I could handle, but not this. I started crying.

I could feel myself starting to slip away. I tried to tell the nurse what was going on. I told her I had PTSD, that something bad happened to me in a hospital and that this was extremely difficult for me and that I would rather leave. I kept saying I need to go.

What did my honesty get me? A psych hold. As if I didn’t have enough going on, their response was to put me on a safety 1 on 1. I wasn’t suicidal. I was in a panic state.

I was humiliated. They forced me to take off all of my clothes, including my underwear. I explained to them that I was a survivor of sexual abuse and that I needed my clothing to help me feel protected. They gave exactly zero fucks. I asked if I could speak to someone about this to explain the situation, and they told me no. I asked again to speak to someone higher up, and was told there was no one to speak to. Once they put you on a psych hold, you have no rights. I asked for water for over an hour and couldn’t even get that.

I should have been at work that night. I shouldn’t have been laying in a hospital bed without my clothes and possessions being treated like I had committed a crime. I couldn’t even pee by myself. The aide had to stand there and watch me pee and wipe, just like my mother used to watch me before she decided she needed to “help”.

I cried off and on that night. I wasn’t even concerned about my lungs anymore. I wanted my protection back. I wanted my dignity. It was stolen away from me. Again. My therapist was trying to help calm me down, but I was so out of it I couldn’t process everything she was saying. I eventually got so tired of crying that I fell asleep.

I called my program therapist early the next morning to tell her what was going on and ask for support. I was concerned about the psych hold more than anything. I didn’t want to end up inpatient, and I wanted her to be able to advocate for me if needed. My experience with the nurses had been so horrible, that I had low expectations for the psychiatrist. I expected to have to fight. But I didn’t have to. I saw the psychiatrist later that morning and after two minutes, he had taken off the psych hold. I told him I  had explained to the nurses that I had previous trauma in a hospital and I had PTSD, and he said my reaction was completely understandable given the circumstances.

It was great that the psychiatrist realized that, but I had been put through 17 hours of unnecessary bullshit, re-traumatization, and cruelty. For nothing. I was punished for being a victim.

By then, I didn’t even care how my lungs were at all. I could have been dying, I didn’t care. I was not staying in that hospital any longer. The pulmonary doctor came to see me. She saw something on the x-rays and told me I needed a CT scan. Nope, sorry. I have things to do. My patience was already too far gone. Am I dying right this second? No? Then I need to go.

I told the pulmonary doctor I would come back for the tests. But I don’t need to go back.

I don’t need any more diagnoses. I don’t need any more problems. I don’t need any more humiliation. I can’t take any more.

Take it all away

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments


These are the gravestones my mother sent to me. I carry them with me, just like I carry the fear with me, every day.

There is no safety here, no sense of security. The very small amount I may have had is lost now. I spend every day waiting for her. I check for her behind the unlocked doors of the house I live in. I look for her down the street wherever I’m walking. I see her in my nightmares. I hear her voice in my head. She lives here, now more than ever.

Part of me wishes she would get it over with already. Punish me for my sins. End my life.

I was never supposed to tell.  And I spent so many years not telling a soul. But then I started to speak, only to be shut down.

I already knew that was happening. You’re just confused. You’re misinterpreting her love. Mothers don’t do those things. She’s not that kind of person. Your mother loves you.

My mother was right. No one understood. No one believed me. So I gave up the fight  . And then I escaped and I believed that I was free. I found my voice and I told the world who my mother was and is — I committed the ultimate sin, the most horrendous crime against my mother. And the punishment for that is death.

I wonder when she comes for me, will they all stand and watch, just as they stood and watched her abuse me? Will they cover their eyes and pretend like they can’t see anything, just like they covered their eyes and pretended they couldn’t see the scars? Will they turn and walk away, just as they turned and walked away from me all those times they knew what was happening?

Or will they see me on the ground, bloody and broken and dying, and give me a band-aid so they can say they tried to help me? Your bunnies, your prayers, your positive thoughts did nothing to save me. Bunnies didn’t stop the rape. Jesus didn’t stop the beating. Affirmations didn’t stop the pain. I needed help — not material things or spirits or empty words. I needed help and I got a band-aid. You can’t put a band-aid on a hemorrhage.

They want to hide me. They tell me they help me find safety. But they don’t understand that I will never be safe. They don’t understand that no matter where I run away, she will always find me. I will never be safe for as long as she is breathing. She cannot be stopped. She is a criminal free to roam, a monster in plain sight. No longer a captor of my body, but always a captor of my mind.

The damage is done. No one can help me now. The fear is a part of me; it runs through my veins. The pain cannot be healed; it lives on in every scar. That can never be taken away or erased. It’s permanent.

My mother thinks of my death as punishment, but I think of it as a reward. Killing me is the best thing she could do for me, the greatest gift she could ever give to me. It’s the only way the fear will end, the only way to stop all of the pain.

She’s already taken so much life from me. She shattered my mind, she murdered my spirit, she drowned my soul. There’s nothing left to take but the life from my body.

Take it all away.

I can’t change.

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

I’ve been trying to die for the last 24 years.

At six years old, I tried to drown myself. Six. Years. Old. It’s difficult for me to process, because I am entirely detached from the emotions of six year-old me. I remember what it felt like when the water filled up my lungs. I remember what it felt like to sink. I can’t remember the feeling, how sad and hopeless I must have felt to think that I could end it all by drowning. I wonder what it must have felt like to be pulled away, rescued from the ocean, but never rescued from what was really killing me, who was really killing me.

At ten years old, I tried to hang myself. For those few seconds, I felt what it was like to suffocate. I felt what it was like to have no air. I don’t remember feeling fear. I don’t even remember feeling pain; it was actually quite the opposite. I felt at peace. And then the strap snapped, and I fell to the floor. Instead of relief, I felt anger. The opportunity for peace had been ripped right out from under me.

At fifteen years old, I tried to bleed to death. All of my anger, all of my pain, and all of my desperation poured out through blood and tears. I couldn’t feel anything but the pain. Nothing else existed in that moment. My body was there; my mind was somewhere else. I sat in the bathroom alone and waited to die, but death never came. The bleeding stopped, and so did the tears. I became numb. I had no other choice.

At nineteen years old, I tried to stab myself. It was violent, fueled by the anger and rage that I had no other choice but to suppress. I so often dreamed of stabbing my mother, but I was too weak to make an attempt. I couldn’t stab the people who hurt me. So I stabbed myself. It scared me. The rage I had inside pushed me to a level I had never experienced before. And it’s a rage I can never forget, because those wounds turned into malformed scars that I see and feel every day of my life.

At twenty-two years old, I tried to end my life. I wasn’t going to mess it up this time. I planned it so carefully. I had a notebook full of calculations, weight conversions, lethal dosage levels. I triple checked to make sure it was going to be right. I took twice the lethal dose of aspirin and waited to die, with my family there, hiding me away, ashamed of what I had done. I didn’t die that day. I should have died. Instead of finding solace in death, I found hopelessness in life.

At twenty-five years old, I tried again, on the very same day I tried three years prior. A mix of three this time. If one isn’t enough, surely the others would do me in. I just wanted everything to end. I wanted her to stop hurting me. I wanted to stop crying myself to sleep. I wanted to stop being afraid. I wanted to be free, and the only freedom was in death. But once again, death didn’t come to me. All that came was more pain.

At twenty-nine years old, I tried a third time, on that very same day. I thought of running into the ocean that night, getting lost and drowning before anyone would ever find me. But I couldn’t move. I was stuck in a bed in a strange place, drowning in my own memories. I took an Ativan hoping it would help me, but I was still drowning. So I gave up. I took twenty more and before I could do it again, someone saved me. They didn’t understand that I didn’t want to be saved.

At thirty years old, I tried to die. I ran out in the highway in the dark of the morning, in front of traffic, hoping that someone would hit me and end my life. If I couldn’t do it, I wanted someone else to do it for me. I wasn’t worried about the pain. The broken bones, the internal bleeding, the crushed insides — those possibilities were nothing compared to the pain and hopelessness that consumed me. Crush my body just like my heart has been crushed. Break my bones just like my mind has been broken. But no one hit me. They saw me, even through my invisibility.

All those times, I should have died. I wanted my peace. I wanted an end to the pain. Why couldn’t I get that? I don’t know. I fail at dying, but I also fail at living.

The expectation that I can just take away everything that has happened to me, that I can go on with my life without wanting to die — I can’t. I’ve spent most of my life trying to end my life. A pill won’t fix that. Group therapy won’t fix that. A new therapist won’t fix that.

It’s part of my life, ingrained in me since childhood.

Crash

~ KJ ~ 10 Comments

I feel it coming.

That moment when the last string holding shit together finally breaks and everything comes spilling out. That moment when the last screw in the last hinge comes loose and the door flies right off the wall. That moment when everything comes crashing down because the weight is just too much to handle.

I am tired. Physically and emotionally spent. But I can’t even sleep anymore, between the noise in my head and the noise right outside my door. Every ring of the doorbell, every knock at the door, every 3 AM TV show played on volume 50, every fucking noise in the middle of the night — I hear it. And I can’t sleep.

And it drains me. At a time when my body needs the most rest, I am getting the least. The least sleep. The least food. The least of everything. I am running on fumes, and I’m waiting for the day when I finally run out of gas and drop to the floor.

I thought about going to the hospital, which is ironic considering I just fought my way out of there two weeks ago when I was sick. But there are things there that I can’t get right now: a safe place to sleep, three meals a day, quiet, and care. I need those things, right now more than ever.

But I can’t do that. I can’t just drop everything and pretend like my needs matter. The world doesn’t work like that. If I went to the hospital, I wouldn’t be able to go to work, and right now I can’t even afford a tissue to sneeze in. So what choice do I have? No matter what I do, I’m fucked in one way or another.

I try to get care in wherever I can. I stay at work just so I can have some peace and quiet. I sleep there, too. I feed myself off of unwanted food and value menu items I buy with the gift cards I got for Christmas. I use another gift card to go to the movies to give myself a break from my life for a little while. I don’t think my coworkers and friends will ever know how much their gifts have helped me get through these last couple weeks. They have indirectly been my source of care, of peace and sustenance.

This isn’t a way to live. I can’t do it anymore. I shouldn’t have to live like this. I shouldn’t have to sleep at work. I shouldn’t have to look for peace and solace in places that aren’t my home. I shouldn’t have to feel trapped inside my own room.

But don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I still get out of bed. I still go to work in the morning. I am still breathing.

Is that enough?

Terminate

~ KJ ~ 11 Comments

I think there are people in this world that just can’t be helped.

I think I am one of those people.

I tried. I really did.

I took every pill the doctors prescribed. Every anti-depressant that left me more suicidal than before. Every anti-psychotic that failed to stop the voices or the impulse to self-destruct. Every anti-anxiety pill that only took the edge off. Every mood stabilizer that sent me spiraling deeper into depression. Every sleeping pill, every stimulant, every off-label medication they tried to help me with has failed.

There is no pill for this. There’s no magic medicine, no chemical imbalance to correct.

My mind is broken in a way that can’t be fixed. You can’t put a splint on my brain. You can’t put a cast on my memories. You can’t fix something that’s been broken too many times for too long.

Maybe if someone had caught it early, I wouldn’t be this way. If someone spoke up instead of saying silent. If someone had questioned my mother instead of letting it go. If someone told her to stop instead of helping her. If someone feared her as much as they feared God. If someone had saved me, instead of leaving me behind.

But no one did any of that. And now I am here, shattered pieces held together by watered-down glue. Forever unstable, the slightest touch breaks me all over again.

There is no cure for this. There’s no way to undo what’s been done. I can’t hit rewind. I can’t start over. I can’t erase the pain in my heart because it’s been written in permanent ink.

Every time I was raped, molested, assaulted, beaten, burned — another piece of me was broken. A tiny crack on the surface was all anyone could see, but beneath that was complete brokenness. A soul left to die, a mind left shattered, both hidden underneath the face and body of an innocent child, an innocent child who didn’t know her innocence because it was stolen from her before she ever had a chance to experience it.

How does someone get over that? I think I would have rather been hurt by a stranger. Maybe I could have handled it better then. At least I would have known what love was, at least I could have had someone to turn to. But I didn’t have that, because the one person that should have loved and supported me and kept me safe was the person that hurt me night after night and taught me how to be afraid.

I tried to be helped. Every school guidance counselor, every social worker, every therapist. They tried. But they couldn’t help me, either. I took one last chance. I told myself if this didn’t work, then that was it for me. Fifteen years of medication and therapy failures is fifteen years too many. I didn’t want to go through it anymore. I gave up everything for this one last attempt at healing.

But I don’t think it’s working. The cost of my freedom has been permanent fear, a fear that can’t be helped. No matter what day it is, no matter where I am, I am living in fear of her. I’m afraid every morning when I try to take a shower without her. I’m afraid every afternoon when I’m walking home alone, waiting for her to come and kill me before I can get in the door. I’m afraid every time I go to bed, because I don’t know if she will come in and hurt me. I’m afraid every time I get sick, because I’m scared it means she will have to take care of me.

I’m in two worlds. One that’s the present and one that’s the past. One where I’m living and one where I’m dying. One where I’m grown up and one where I’m growing. I can’t tell the difference anymore. I don’t think I’m in one or the other. The worlds collided and now I am stuck in the middle, walking alone. I just want someone to walk with me. I want someone to understand what it’s like to be inside my mind. But that can never happen.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair for me to put other people through my chaos. My therapist can’t cure me. She can’t go inside my mind. She can’t walk with me. She can’t help me.

So maybe it’s time to let therapy go. Maybe I’m just supposed to live with the fear and the panic and the pain and the shame and the confusion. Maybe I’m lost because there isn’t a way home. Maybe I’m just supposed to exist like this.

Maybe they were right all along. I am too complex. I am a puzzle that can never be put back together because the pieces have been torn up, burned, and thrown away. And no one ever wants to put together a puzzle that doesn’t have all its pieces. It’s an effort destined for failure, no matter what you do, the puzzle can never be solved. I can never be fixed.

Help came too late.

Dysfunctional function

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

I’ve been going through the process of applying for disability.

I started the application in June, but hesitated finishing it because I had a lot of self-doubt. There was some fear in being rejected. There was a lot shame in needing help. I told myself I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I told myself I didn’t need this help, I just needed to be stronger.

I struggle with asking for help in general, but when it comes to finances, it’s even more difficult. My parents were not rich, but my father had a well-paying job that should have allowed us to live comfortably. My mother was irresponsible, and wasted money on material bullshit instead of paying the bills. She always had the newest phones, but could not pay the wireless bill. She had an abnormal abundance of home decor, but could not pay the electric bill. She’d guilt people into paying her bills. She used other people as a means of financial support, and I always hated that.

And I feel like I am doing the same thing by trying to get financial assistance. I feel like I am in some way able to do more than I am doing, that I’m just putting my money into the wrong things, just like my mother had done.

But I’m not. I’m putting my money into all the right things. I pay my rent every month. I pay all of my bills, even if it’s just the minimum payment. I pay my therapist every week. I’m not irresponsible at all. I’m not like my mother. But it’s still not enough. I am still not worthy.

I tried to work more. It lasted all of four days. I can only handle so much in one day before I get completely exhausted. I wish I could work full-time, but I know it would be disastrous; not only for me, but for those who would be working with me. Three hours into the day, and I’m already emotionally spent. Five hours into the day, and I’m already physically exhausted.

But I’m still working. I’m still earning a paycheck. And I am afraid that alone will get me rejected. They don’t understand that my paycheck doesn’t even cover all the basic necessities. They’re not there some months when I have to figure out how to get enough food to eat with $15. They don’t see the times I had to pay my rent with cash advances. They don’t know how much I sacrifice just to pay for therapy.

They will think I’m too able to be disabled, that I function too well to deserve any help. But they don’t see the dysfunction in my function.

They are not with me every morning when I can barely make it out of bed to take a shower. They are not there with me each morning I walk to the bus stop in tears because I’m so depressed and lost and scared of life. They do not see the panic attacks I go through at work, all the times I cry in the bathroom, and the multiple emotional meltdowns I have in front of my coworkers.

They don’t see how sick I can get just from eating a meal. They don’t see me struggling to breathe, or throwing up in the parking lot because there’s just not enough room in my chest for me to breathe if my stomach is full. They can’t feel my constant nausea. They don’t know what it’s like to walk around with an invisible elephant on your chest.

They don’t see me crying on the bus on the way home because I’m just so exhausted. They don’t know how many meals I skip, because I’m either too tired to eat or I just don’t care enough to be nourished. They’re not there every time I get dizzy, every time I pass out because my body is constantly running on fumes.

They’re not with me every night when I spend hours laying in bed, just wishing for a decent night of sleep. They don’t know how many times I am startled awake by the cat downstairs, or a car down the street. They can’t see the nightmares that keep me awake through the night. They can’t see how exhausted I am every day, how much I struggle just to hold my head up.

They can’t see my flashbacks. They can’t feel my body memories. They don’t hear the voices I hear in my head every day, or the noise that seems to get louder and louder. They don’t feel the fear I experience every day of my life. They don’t know how badly I just want to die. They don’t understand how much effort it takes just for me to have a conversation with somebody.

They can’t see the depression, the anxiety, the fear and the panic that runs through my mind and body every single hour of every day. They don’t see the wounds I hide under my clothes, or the pain I try to bury away so I can make it through another day. They don’t understand how many times I should have been in a hospital, but couldn’t afford to be out of work. They don’t know how many moments I’ve lost because I can’t handle the stress, so I dissociate.

They don’t see any of that. All they can see is a person who is able, the same as everyone else sees. She works, she is not disabled. But they don’t realize that any other job would have fired me. They don’t see how much this life is destroying me.

In a way, my resilience is my downfall. It makes me people think I am much better than I really am.

I am shattered glass inside of a shatter-proof box. No one can see the catastrophe that exists inside, because they only focus on what they see on the outside.

I am true dysfunction, hidden by perceivable function.