I Get Derailed Easily

I get derailed easily and fast.  Relatively minor events can send me into a tailspin that spirals me into a dark and lonely place.  Small moments send me back to terrible times and I make associations with the present and past that do not exist.  

I've been looking for a cat for a few months.  I adore cats, and due to my ex-husband hating them, I've been without a cat for many years.  I'm also late 40's, and single AF, so cat lady felt appropriate. I really wanted a black cat.  And I found my perfect little panther named Vixen.  She was shiny black with sparkling blue eyes.  I submitted to adopt her and a home visit was planned.  I started looking at pink cat beds and towers.  I planned where her play area would be.  I dreamed up the Facebook post I would do about her.  I believed I would get her any day. 

The day before the home visit I received a text saying my kitty, Vixen, had been adopted by someone else.  I was never given a heads up that others were in the running before me and I could lose her.  I started out angry but this morphed into hurt.  Friends were trying to comfort me sending me cat pictures of other adoptable cats.  It was just a cat, right?  Yet losing this cat got bigger in my head.  The cat became every major loss I'd experienced.  Not getting her became every situation where I crumbled from disappointment.  "Why?" turned into "Why me?" which descended into "Why is it always me?"  Loneliness overtook me.  I shut off the lights, took a scalding bath, and sobbed for a loss of something I never had.

When this kind of spiral happens it amplifies anything in my life I see as off or wrong.  Headlight out, drain in the bathroom sink is messed up, taxes aren't together, medical procedure I'm scared about. None of these are life-ending things.  Life fucks up every day and these are truly minor inconveniences.  Yet my nervous system was in full survival mode.  Logic couldn't override the feelings.

I know I do this, and I know what experiences happened in my past to trigger these responses.  Awareness helps as I take active steps to pull it together instead of allowing a free fall into despair.  I get exasperated at myself that these "everything is awful" feelings still spring up.  Yet I can't control them.  I can manage them but I haven't found a way to make the thoughts not happen.

Maybe my hope of being a person that can shrug things off and smile is fully unrealistic.  Would any ESFJ, Leo, Type A, PTSD person ever think the glass is half full?  I'm a realist.  Perhaps I can get to a place where I'm content to have the glass at all and not feeling like it's almost empty and I'm dying of thirst.  

Will I ever be healed?

“healing comes in waves, and I'm allowed to feel every rise and every fall of my tide.” ~ Alexandra Elle

Will I ever be healed?  Or perhaps the question is really; will I ever not be broken?  At the end of yoga class today, lying on my mat, I started to cry.  I felt old trauma coming up, issues I've dealt with repeatedly over the years, yet at that moment they were as fresh as when they happened.  This occurs frequently when processing your past, especially a past with a shit ton of nightmares, but it comes in waves.  No two waves are the same in the ocean and it's the same for healing from memories that come back.  Yes, same old fucking issue but taken from a new vantage point, a place of greater strength, a more supportive time.  

I'm not the person I was when these painful instances happened.  I'm new daily.  I'm stronger than I've ever been and see nothing but power on my horizon.  Power over my future, power over my voice, power over who I surround myself with....yet power over the memories, that can bitch slap you out of nowhere, still feels impossible for me to escape.  I've done the therapy, I've done the hard work, but some things run so deep through my soul, truly the core of all I am, that I fear I'll never fully have freedom from the pain.

My yoga teacher spoke about fear in a pose and looking for the escape plan.  I can only feel so much before anxiety and agony overwhelm me and I run for some perceived safety.  On good days I go to yoga, meditate, call a friend, write and get outside a breath.  Good days.  But most days aren't good days.  I also online shop, waste hours on Facebook, drink too much wine, smoke too much weed and stuff myself with sugar.  Don't get worried, my shit is together.  I'm known far and wide for my high level of responsibility.  Yet looking out my window, alone, once I've taken care of the day's tasks, it all comes rushing back.  

As I've said before, I know my words heal.  I know my vulnerability, though truly so limited right now, is what someone needs.  I'm using my suffering for good.  But I'm so pissed.  I'm livid I have to do this.  In the 80's there was a popular song by Moving Pictures called "What about me?" and I felt it was my life's song.  Still do. 

And now I'm standing on the corner, all the world's gone home
Nobody's changed, nobody's been saved
And I'm feeling cold and alone
I guess I'm lucky, I smile a lot
But sometimes I wish for more than I've got

What about me? It isn't fair
I've had enough, now I want my share
Can't you see, I want to live
But you just take more than you give

What about me?
What about me?
What about....me

I feel like I need to put focus on accepting that some things aren't repairable.  Though I can cry the tears and face the world with a smile to mask the pain; some memories will always hurt.  I'm OK though.  Perhaps being broken actually helps weed out the weak people who can't handle adversity and struggle.  Either way....I'll go on.

Finding my voice

If you've ever spent even the smallest amount of time with me, a few things become clear right away.  I'm loud, I'm funny and both of these will increase with each glass of wine I drink.  I've been told repeatedly, especially in work situations, that upon meeting me it was believed that I was intimidating and someone you wouldn't want to mess with.  All the people that have had that impression laugh hysterically once they got to know me and realize I'm actually a bit of a pushover.  My passion and intensity can make me appear angry and mean, when I'm really just expressing myself in big ways.  

All this said; I hate confrontation and rarely will tell someone "You hurt me" "Don't speak to me that way" "What you said isn't OK".  I have a deep fear that they will say something hurtful to me if I'm ever not agreeable and nice.  It's a form of self protection.  Now I will speak boldly and forcefully when I'm defending others.  Just not me.

I had a conversation with a friend recently, can't remember context, but she asked me "And what did he say when you told him you didn't like that?"  I howled laughing and said, "Have you forgotten who you are speaking to?  I didn't say a thing!"  The panic rises in me quickly at the thought of asking for what I need.  You could dare me to do just about anything and it would be easier for me than letting a person know how I need to be treated.

Sure I could therapy this into the next century; but do I really have that kind of time?  I'm so tired of being silent.  It's suffocating me.

Had a situation come up this week which challenged me to speak up.  An old boyfriend made an accusation that I said something and told a friend of mine.  What he said was a complete lie. Now most people would say let it go, silence is a statement, he's not worth it.  All good advice and initially I did nothing.  But it started eating at me.  I wanted to speak.  I wanted to say that what he did wasn't OK.  So I texted him today, and boldly said what he did was wrong and would not be tolerated.  I then blocked him on all social media as his response wasn't needed by me.  Had a panic attack for maybe and minute and then felt strength rising up in me.  I felt more mature, I felt in control and I felt free.  

So I spoke up for myself and the planet kept spinning.  You've been warned....I won't be taking shit any longer. 

Tori Amos Lyrics

Play "Silent All These Ye…" on Amazon Music

"Silent All These Years"

Excuse me but can I be you for a while
My dog won't bite if you sit real still
I got the anti-Christ in the kitchen yellin' at me again
Yeah I can hear that

Been saved again by the garbage truck
I got something to say you know
But nothing comes
Yes I know what you think of me
You never shut up
Yeah I can hear that

But what if I'm a mermaid
In these jeans of his
With her name still on it
Hey but I don't care
'Cause sometimes
I said sometimes
I hear my voice
And it's been here
Silent all these years

So you found a girl
Who thinks really deep thoughts
What's so amazing about really deep thoughts
Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon
How's that thought for you

My scream got lost in a paper cup
Do you think there's a heaven
Where the screams have gone
I got 25 bucks and a cracker
Do you think it's enough
To get us there

'Cause what if I'm a mermaid
In these jeans of his
With her name still on it
Hey but I don't care
'Cause sometimes
I said sometimes
I hear my voice
And it's been here
Silent all these...

Years go by
Will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand
Years go by
If I'm stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds
Raining in my head

Years go by
Will I choke on my tears
'Til finally there is nothing left
One more casualty
You know we're too easy easy easy

Well I love the way we communicate
Your eyes focus on my funny lip shape
Let's hear what you think of me now
But baby don't look up
The sky is falling

Your mother shows up in a nasty dress
And it's your turn now to stand where I stand
Everybody lookin' at you
Here take hold of my hand
Yeah I can hear them

But what if I'm a mermaid
In these jeans of yours
With her name still on it
Hey but I don't care
'Cause sometimes
I said sometimes
I hear my voice
I hear my voice
I hear my voice

And it's been here
Silent all these years
I've been here
Silent all these years

Performative Vulnerability

I was seen recently in a way I didn't want.  At a friend's house I went into one of my stories of my life and he said, "I've heard this one.  You tell it the same way every time.  It's performative vulnerability.  I know...I do it too."  FUCK!  At first I felt embarrassed and hurt, but when I dug further I realized it was actually shame (Thanks, Brene Brown!).  He was dead on accurate; as I'd said in a previous post about vulnerability, I will tell you what seems to be an overshare but it's actually calculated so you don't know what I truly feel.  

What I hated more than feeling called out (though he did it in love....sure wasn't trying to hurt me) was that I saw my father in these performances.  My father loved to tell a dramatic story, same inflection, same pauses, though sometimes enhanced through the years.  I hated these stories.  I could imitate them word for word and would eye roll each time I heard it being retold.  He would say, "Stop me if you've heard this one!" and I would immediately reply, "Stop."  When his Alzheimer's progressed, the stories seemed to be all he'd remember, so once he began a story you couldn't stop him.  I would say, "Yes, I know this one well." and he'd keep on going, sometimes even starting over.  I see my future and I'm not amused.  

What would I be without my performances? (tears are welling up typing this)  My stories make me less ordinary.  My dramatic playbacks of my life are what make some horrible things now laughable.  What I heard when he said this to me was "You are way too fucking much.  No one wants to listen to you."  I fully acknowledge that his intentions and my skewed perception of it are worlds apart.  I don't believe that's what he was saying yet the feelings remain.

Because I am too much for most people.  I'm funny.  I'm entertaining.  I'm a riot to hang out with.  But damn....could you just tone it down a few thousand notches.  And I can't do it.  I leave most every interaction I have (parties, gatherings, work events, etc...) replaying all the ways I got too loud, said too much and went too far.  I've tried.  I've tried so hard and believe it or not what you see is actually very toned down from what's going on inside.  I'm not sure this world could handle me being fully myself. Not sure I could handle it.  

Yet blunt, boisterous, loud and in your face isn't being vulnerable.  I don't trust vulnerability and I sure don't trust your ability to handle it if I exposed myself.  Even this blog, Raw Bleach, the whole point is "not toning it down", but I do.  I'm scared.  I have received numerous private messages of people telling me they've read my pieces and were moved and encouraged me not to stop.  And in those moments I do take a tiny step forward, maybe reveal a little thing, and see that I'm not abandoned.  Admitting all this is vulnerable for me.  I'm truly giving all I can right now.

Raw Bleach

Hope for 1 Year

I was inspired today by a friend's Facebook post where she asked us to ask ourselves, "What if...?"  I've never really asked myself "What if...?" in a positive way.  All my questions have been "What if it falls apart?" "What if I fail?" "What if I die?" To consider anything else meant to hope and hope wasn't allowed for me.  Hoping meant disappointment.  Hoping was for everyone else.  

Yet today after completing a scary one year project, where I did a selfie a day on Instagram, and didn't implode, I decided to push myself a step further.  I'm going to live for 1 entire year with hope.  When I'm scared I'm going to ask myself how it can go well.  When it falls apart I'm going to look for something better around the corner.  

Please understand this isn't some cute be positive, say some affirmations and skip down the lane thing.  For me to allow myself any hope, much less for a year, is about the equivalent of saying I'm going to spontaneously grow a horn on my head.  Every cell in my body is revolting against this.  My anxiety is leaving me breathless, as it feels this will set me up for awful things to happen.  My protector self is screaming "No!  You're going to get hurt!  I may not be able to save you!"

I'm not good at a lot but I can do scary things.  I'm resilient as fuck and my tenacity has got me to the other side when no one thought I'd make it.  Although I'm already hating this before it begins I'm doing it anyway.

Now if you've known me a long time and are jumping around smugly thinking you've told me this all along, let me please say keep your fucking mouth shut.  I don't need an I told you so.  Really....just don't.  Please don't.  

Here we go....

Scarcity Fears and the New Year

This isn't a New Year's resolutions post.  Well maybe it is but I don't want to call it that.  This is my processing of my life, and you get to witness it through my writing.  I've thought about many of these ideas and moments for so long that I don't remember if I blogged about them or not.  So there may be repeats from previous posts, but fuck it, I do what I want with my blog.

I don't recall a time in my life where I ever felt I was taken care of and that my future needs would be met.  Even in moments such as where I'm at right now; bills paid, food in the fridge, clothed, warm and safe, the future voice of "But what if something bad happens?" looms in the distance.  Though it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be, I still frequently have to go through the hierarchy of needs with myself and get reminded that I'm OK for this moment.  

Up until my parents divorced when I was 15, my needs were met.  My father was a pastor, and didn't make much, but he'd hustle on the side selling cars and houses, so I never went without the basics.  He was also insanely frugal, and in his own scarcity fears, projected onto the rest of us.  At a young age I can remember him ranting about money, talking doom and gloom as if we'd be on the street any moment.  As a young teen I did everything I could to give the appearance that we were decently middle class, though in reality I'm sure we were on the low end.  

When my parents divorced I lived with my mother and youngest brother in South Minneapolis.  My mother did have a job but it wasn't much.  We lived on cream of chicken soup and noodles for  years.  To this day I can't stand a cream sauce.  You could take me to the finest restaurant in town but if cream sauce was served I'll only taste being poor.  Now whether my mother was too prideful to go to a food shelf or just didn't know, there wasn't much food around.  No new school clothes, no extra curricular activities and for a few years no Christmas presents.  The thrifty days of when my parents were together now looked like pure extravagance.  Instead of looking at this as a moment in time, my brain went into survival mode and is struggling to break away from this way of thinking.  

I'm sure many will say it's a great life skill that I can now hustle like a mother fucker.  I am empowered by this as I do know and believe I will survive.  The flip side is living in a near continual state of anxiety that the other shoe will drop and that I should be on alert at all times.  Once I bought 10 t-shirts that were on sale instead of the pretty but more expensive sweater I adored.  My thought was that if there was a war that I'd need those t-shirts in case I had to do manual labor.  Our country was not in a threat of war at that time yet I was somehow convinced I was about to be Rosie the Riveter.  

For all my scarcity fears you'd think I'd have loads saved and be a coupon clipping maniac.  I'm not.  I do spend rather freely but do not always make wise decisions.  Although I'm known for my love of shoes, I actually am more of a clothes hoarder.  Every year I give away bags full of what's not being worn only to fill my closet again.  I feel guilt about giving away things I never wore, and the carelessness of spending that way, and I feel guilt about buying more.  I'll leave food in the fridge that is about to go bad until I can replace it with something else because the sight of an almost empty fridge scares me.  I have to stop myself when leftovers from meetings are put in the break room and ask if I'm hungry or just fearful of not having enough, before I dash to gobble up some cold piece of crap from hours before.  

One of my life goals since my father's death has been to not be like him, and one specific way is his fear of not having enough money, and spending like a miser.  But as much as I'd love to max out some credit cards and fly around the world, I need to balance that with facts and reason.  It's all such a balancing act.  Life your best life!  Treat yo self!  You don't have enough in your 401K and will live in a ditch when you're 90!  I want the coming year to be different.  I want to face these fears with a healthy balance of living a big life and making good choices.  

I really don't have a great way to tie this up.  I'm looking out at my porch at my bike which has sat in the same spot for a year and a half.  I should have brought it in last winter, but instead stared at it with the snow coming down, shaming myself that it's rusting.  I remain immobile.  I'm thinking about the shirt I bought online this morning and how I sorted the price low to high and was price focused and not want/need focused. I'm looking at the pink Christmas cards I bought on clearance and smiling with delight.  

Accepting Compliments

I've been trying to write this post for weeks.  Maybe longer.  I stare at the screen nightly, the words going through my head, but nothing coming out.  So please understand this is hard for me to share.  Hard to express.  And the greater fear, the fear with all my posts, is my words will be used against me.  I worry what I say won't be conveyed in the right way and opinions and perceptions of me will be formed that I don't like.  I'm going to call some people out from my past.  As one of my favorite authors Anne Lamott said, "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”  And hey....fuck you if you don't understand.

I struggle to accept compliments.  I know many if not most people can relate to this in some way but it runs much deeper.  Because it's not that I can't accept any compliment; it's only certain ones.  If you tell me I'm funny, I will look you dead in the eye and say, "I know!  I'm a riot!!" and I feel it and mean it.  If you tell me I bake a kick ass pumpkin muffin I will say, "I've worked hard at these and really perfected my recipe.  Thank you."  Yet tell me I'm smart, tell me I do a great job or tell me you think I'm beautiful and I'll crumble before you.  

No deep psychological analysis needed to know how I got here.  I didn't get compliments growing up.  Or if I did my parents took credit for it.  I was never Daddy's pretty princess.  My father was a hard core Baptist minister who felt to be anything but blunt was a lie.  So I knew when he never told me I was pretty that he felt I wasn't.  And all other looks, comments and flat out statements proved I was right.  I wasn't skinny, I wasn't cute, I didn't stand out.  This became the basis for my self esteem.

My ex husband never complimented me.  At absolute best he would say, "you look nice".  This includes my wedding day.  In many marriage counseling sessions I said, "It hurts me deeply that you don't think I'm beautiful.  I'm your fucking wife."  The reply was, "Well I never told anyone else I dated that they were beautiful."  In my head this meant he absolutely didn't feel I was because even when I'm pleading that I need this he wouldn't do it.  He told me before we divorced that I had gotten better looking with age.  It's true but it stung deeply.

My best friend tells me constantly that I'm beautiful.  She knows I cringe and cry when she says it and she continues.  She knows that the only way for me to heal is for me to keep hearing it until I believe it.  When I met her years ago she offhandedly said something about me being pretty.  She doesn't know this but I went to the bathroom and cried.  It was the first time I'd ever have a friend call me pretty.  Now my friends had said I looked nice, an outfit looks attractive  on me, I looked good but the words pretty and beautiful were elusive to me.  

I get anxious when I'm complimented at work.  I do work hard and of course want to hear it's appreciated.  Yet now at the holidays I'm being told very nice things, with gifts, and my anxiety is through the roof.  I know I absolutely deserve this but fear overtakes me.  I'm not even sure what the fear is about but I'm wiping tears and scared as I type thinking about it.  

Being single now, and holding up decently well for my age, I get a lot of compliments.  I'm always a little stunned, embarrassed and mostly nervous and wary.  I worry I'm being manipulated.  I fear they see this is my weakness and they are going to use me.  I don't believe them.  

They say you can't love unless you love yourself.  Well that's bullshit.  I love wonderfully.  But no...I don't love myself.  I don't know that I ever will.  Though I do feel with time I can breathe easier when a kind word is said to me.  I think the core fear is that if I believe it then someone will laugh and say I'm wrong.  I can't take that level of devastation.

She just wants to be beautiful
She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits
She craves attention, she praises an image
She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor
Oh, she don't see the light that's shining
Deeper than the eyes can find it
Maybe we have made her blind
So she tries to cover up her pain and cut her woes away
'Cause cover girls don't cry after their face is made

But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh, oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing, yhe world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

She has dreams to be an envy, so she's starving
You know, covergirls eat nothing
She says beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything
What's a little bit of hunger?
I could go a little while longer, she fades away
She don't see her perfect, she don't understand she's worth it
Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface
Oh, oh
So to all the girls that's hurting
Let me be your mirror, help you see a little bit clearer
The light that shines within

There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

Oh-oh, oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

No better you than the you that you are (no better you than the you that you are)
No better life than the life we're living (no better life than the life we're living)
No better time for your shine, you're a star (no better time for your shine, you're a star)
Oh, you're beautiful, oh, you're beautiful

And there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh, oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

Scars to Your Beautiful lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group