Comfortably Numb...

I ran away once, when I was about 9. I rode my pink bike and  I brought Peanut butter and bread with me. It was early on a Sunday morning  and my father was in town. I left before the sun came up, I remember watching the sun rise as I rode away, with the hopes that I would never have to go back. I rode my bike further than I ever had. I was on major streets and I wasn’t sure what I was doing. A man offering car washes yelled to me it would be “half price for the half pint”. I felt self conscious and even more unsure of what I was going to do. I had nowhere to go and no one to trust. 

Things were getting bigger and scarier so I rode back home, praying the whole way that my parents were still asleep in bed so that I  wouldn’t  get in trouble. I really thought that somehow I could make it on my own, I thought I was strong enough and would know what to do once I left but after realizing that I couldn't even deal with major intersections sufficiently, I hesitated. My hopes of escape drifted away from my heart like fog in a damp breeze. My only hope at that point was to get back before they realized I was gone, so my already tired legs pedaled faster. I tried to come in very quietly and resign myself to things never getting better; the only way I could go on is to close my heart – not just to hope but to everything. Nothing mattered any more and I felt hopeless and that I would never find a way out of this prison.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.

~Lyrics from Pink Floyd- Comfortably Numb 

My parents were already awake when I got back, and there was not an ounce of the heartwarming welcomes so often portrayed in film and television. They weren't happy to see me and it didn’t matter. I felt numb and dead inside, which made the beating my father gave me irrelevant (until the next day when it still hurt to sit down).  My mother laughed at me and said with a sneer “I knew you’d come back”.

My family of origin told me from a very young age that I was "too sensitive" so I tried to suppress that sensitivity and those feelings. I have since come to learn in therapy that this is a common reaction to my situation:

One of the greatest “aha” moments of my training as a therapist came when I learned about the concept of the assigned “sick one.” In unhealthy family systems, it is often the most sensitive child who takes on this role. This child registers what’s broken in the family, and simply cannot bear that awareness. She or he tries countless ways of calling for help—many of which are convulsive, immature and unhelpful—strengthening the family’s case that the sick one is the problem. Yet in many ways, the sick one is the wise one, even though she or he probably feels broken, weak, or constantly angry. It’s the healthy family that finally becomes brave enough to listen to the painful callings of the “sick one.” When that happens, the family can begin to heal.

Writing and waning...

"If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. 

If you do not bring forth what is within you, 

what is within you will destroy you."

  ~Gospel of Thomas

The secrets within me are indeed destroying me and the time has come to bring them forth. I just signed a contract for some of my writings to be published - in an actual, printed on paper- hold it in your hands- feel the weight of it in your arms- book. I've been writing for years,  but mostly for myself and  never with a deadline as important as this. I knew it would be challenging but I didn't realize the degree of difficulty that would be involved. I had been nightmare free for about 3 months, which  is the longest I've been without them in more than a decade.  After only a few weeks of recounting the realities that have been recurring in my nightmares for more than 20 years I stopped being able to sleep at night or even in bed at all. For the last 2 and a half weeks I haven't been able to fall asleep before the sunrise, usually about 5 or 6 am but sometimes I'm up until as late (or early?) as 9am. 

Countless times I catch myself having to unclench my hands and my jaw or have to remind myself to breathe. Which is difficult when it feels like a boa constrictor has permanently set up residence around my ribcage. My shoulders refuse to stay at shoulder level and instead insist on climbing as close to my ears as they can. I try to  distract myself with movies or games in hopes that it will help me relax. My body is alert and awake while being simultaneously exhausted and much more so at night that during the day. When I'm finally to the point that I'm ready to attempt sleep having a favorite movie on helps me be able to close my eyes. The audio helps keep me anchored in the present and when I have a flashback or intrusive memory I can open my eyes and hurl my mind into the movie.  Eventually I close my eyes again and hopefully fall asleep without another flashback, but most nights this cycle repeats several times.  

Then there's the fact that I have been nauseated for at least part of every single day for as far back as I can remember. Doctors haven't found a medical reason and have prescribed 4 different anti-nausea medications over the years - none of which had any effect except when relieving the nausea caused by morphine in the hospital. Today it was 10:30pm before I realized  I hadn't eaten anything since getting up at noon. I managed to drink some milk and entirely too many glasses of Dr Pepper but the thought of swallowing food ...ugh....not happening today at least.  Once or twice a week a particular food will sound appetizing but after a few bites it usually doesn't seem worth the effort of overcoming not only the nausea but also the craniofacial issues, which are myriad. 22 screws in my jaw and a septum that was mangled in the jaw surgery and later crushed in 2 separate car accidents. Despite the original septoplasty and revision septoplasty where they placed bone grafts to hold open my nasal passages, I can barely draw in air through my nose. Luckily I'm usually eating home alone & my pets have yet to complain about me eating with my mouth open.

"How Secrets Sabatge:
Although we encounter secrets in every area of life, they are perhaps most destructive when kept in the home. Families are support systems; our identity and ability to form close relationships with others depend upon the trust and communication we feel with loved ones. If family members keep secrets from each other--or from the outside world--the emotional fallout can last a lifetime.   A person who seeks to undo the damage caused by family secrets must accept that revealing a secret is not a betrayal but a necessity ...the secret wedges a boulder between those who know it and those who don't."   

I've been questioned by extended  family as to why I don't speak to my parents, even scolded for not doing so. I have always been afraid of answering that question honestly because the reaction of the other person is so unpredictable and my honest answer would make me feel very vulnerable. There are so many members of my extended family that I would love to have relationships with but with this secret wedging " a boulder between between those who know it and those who don't.", it is impossible to establish a wholly authentic relationship.  Those who don't know have a different version of family history than I do and therefore have an entirely different expectation of my role in familial interactions. 

I went into foster care because because I couldn't handle the secrets anymore. When I went into foster care I had already told my best friend and my boyfriend everything- they were safe to tell - but I wasn't able to tell anyone else that I had been molested on a regular basis for years. In court ordered therapy they had me take 6 hours of tests. When the Dr discussed my results, it was with me, my brother and sister in law (who I was living with in kinship care by that point) in the room. So when he said the tests indicated I had been repeatedly sexually abused, I wasn't able to tell them the truth. I told my mother the first time it happened and she didn't believe me, I had no reason to think my brother or sister in law would be any different. I told my brother and sister many years later after I had moved to the other side of the country. It wasn't well received by either of them so I stopped telling family.

"Since individual well-being takes a backseat to group fidelity, being the family member who challenges internal secrets is difficult. Taking the risk of opening a long-held secret to friends and loved ones may seem like an act of betrayal. The anticipated catastrophe of exclusion from the family stops many people--often long after leaving home."

Ghosts of Christmas Past...

By the time I was 11 so much hatred had boiled up inside of me because of the abuse and neglect, that my mother and I fought constantly. During one such fight, she was hanging up the Christmas lights on the house and bitching about how if my father hadn’t left us then she wouldn’t have to be doing this. “It was his job after all!” to take care of his wife and kids, etc, etc. It had rained recently and was going to rain again so I think this contributed to her need to rush. So, me arguing with and yelling at her while she was on a ten-foot ladder probably wasn’t helpful. After a particularly heated exchange I went back inside and slammed the door. I heard something a few minutes later that caused me to go outside but I don’t remember or have blocked out what the noise was. Maybe a scream, a crack or just the ladder falling over…

The winters where I grew up were damp and it was cold that night. When combined with what I saw in front of me as I swung the heavy front door open, it  felt like being dunked in a bucket of ice water. My mother was lying on the sidewalk leading up to our front porch,, the ladder toppled over in the wet garden bed and the Christmas lights dangling unfinished. She was conscious but not moving, she told me to go get our neighbor Helen, a very sweet woman who lived next door. Helen called 911 from our kitchen phone. I think I was the one who called my brother; he was out with my sister and one of our cousins and they all came over.

The ambulance and fire-truck lights soon filled the empty space of the dark night sky as the neighbors started appearing, gathering around our house and it seemed like our yard was full of people. The paramedics were asking my mom questions as I stood silently with my siblings. I can still hear her feisty answers: “Ma’am, how old are you?” “Too damn old!” “How much do you weigh?” “Too damn much!”

I was told to ride in the ambulance because my brothers car was full, but I wanted to get a book first because I figured we would be at the hospital a while and reading was the only “coping” skill I had. I ran to my room and stood in front of my pink and purple bookshelf unable to decide which book, since someone had said “just ONE!”. I don’t know how long it was before someone came in my room - and told me the ambulance was waiting on me. It was an awkward ride to the hospital, sitting in the front seat in silence.

The paramedic who was driving turned on the overhead light for me so I could read on the drive.  I mumbled a "thank you" and stared into my blurry book the rest of the way as my tears overflowed onto the page.  I wasn’t at the hospital for that long, I spent the night with my brother & his wife and they drove me to school the next morning. My mother was in the hospital for 3 days, she had fallen about 10 feet, landing on her head first, and when she came home she was different. Her vision was damaged temporarily, she lost some long-term memory and became an evangelical Christian…