Back in therapy…

Ive given therapy another go. Not because I want to, but because I feel I need to. I havent found the right therapist yet so I will see how this one goes. And it really helps that its free. At this point I am broke so I couldnt afford it even if I wanted it.

 

She’s an older lady which somehow is better for me; I guess I respect the experience rather than being a guinea pig for some psychology graduate. I think I am getting better at talking. Thats good. I told her I express myself through drawing so we had a drawing session. But that consisted of me multi-tasking listening to her ramble on and concentrating on my drawing. I think Im going back to talking. Me talking. All the other therapists that Ive been too have been really rigid with enforced boundaries and stonewalling themselves. This one is different. She doesn’t even care if I come late. and she talks about her daughter. I don’t want to come off as mean, but seriously, its my session and I’m not really interested in hearing about your daughter. Or having to think about your feelings. It takes too much energy that I don’t have.

So, back to therapy, lets hope this time it goes well.

 

 

 

Going through Hell

I went to visit her yesterday.

She stared right through me. She cried but no tears fell.

”They took away my dignity. They locked me up in a small room. No bed, no food, no blanket. They took all my clothes away. I was completely naked. And freezing because they put the air conditioning on full blast. They injected me with sedatives. For six hours I lay on the cold, hard floor, trying to cover myself up with my arms. I couldn’t breathe. Im going through hell.”

Holding back the wave of pain that threatened to engulf me I hugged her tight and told her:

”Your dignity is up here,” I put my hand on her forehead, ‘and here,’ I pointed to her heart.”Nobody can take that away from you. 

 You’re my sister. and I love you with every inch of my heart. That will never change.” I held her hand and stroked her flushed cheek. ” your heart is a muscle, I said, quoting a film I had just watched ”The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Take the pain and think of it as building blocks. you are so strong and so brave and I love you so much. 

I don’t know what is worse; going through hell, or watching someone you love go through it. Its like a double dose of trauma.

 Im still crying.

 

Fire and fear

The neighbourhood I grew up in is a rough one. Gang wars, burglary, squatters and domestic violence that spilled out onto the street. From time to time there would be an abandoned car parked outside my house or just around the corner. It was filled with rubbish and planks of wood. And then, in the early hours of the morning we would smell the smoke and hear the sirens.
A beautiful but deadly blaze.
My biggest fear was that the flames would catch onto the branches of the tree that stood right outside our house and burn us alive just like it did to my friends family home. Five kids and the babysitter.
I think the fear was magnified by my mothers paranoia.
I would sleep on the floor of my parents bedroom because I was too scared to be alone. I don’t know why I thought that I would be safer in their bedroom. I guess it’s just one of those childhood things; the ignorant hope that the monsters weren’t actually real.

I knew the streets, being kicked out of the house at any given time.
I found my hiding place; an alcove, just wide enough to fit my frightened body in. I would crouch down in between the drainpipe and mean scratchiness of the walls. i would hold my breath every time the rushing waters of the drainpipe crashed down and shook the earth below me.
Its funny isn’t it, how that when you are so small everything around you is so big. And loud. And scary.

Oh and I still don’t light fires or carry hot soup.

I Told Them

.

I told them
I spoke to them.
I wrote to them.
I told I told I told

I screamed.
I yelled
I whispered
I cried i cried, I cried

But They didn’t listen.

So I stopped
Screaming
Yelling
Whispering

My tears dried up

I stopped writing
I stopped talking
and
I never told again

All the pain,
the pain
It hid behind my smile
it cowered behind my eyes
and if someone, anyone, would have noticed
just once
once

Maybe I would have told again…

 

Happiness – Spoken Word

When I was a kid I asked my mother; Mummy, will I ever be happy?

And she looked at me with those eyes that never looked at me and offered a straight up No.

And ever since then, I have been chasing happiness-scrambling falling over my feet to catch the train that would take me there. I bagged my seat on that racing train and bagged it, marked it mine, mine mine. And I looked around the carriage and I saw faces, many faces, no smiling faces just empty faces that screamed:

Where were you? Who are you? When are you coming home?

In a cacophony of utterances and syllables that don’t add up and creativity that won’t rest until its fed…

When you toss and turn a million microfibers of thought and emotion whizzing round and round and blurring your eyes even when they are closed.

And I’m still searching, still hoping that one day, someday, I will bump into happiness

I’ve seen horrors and gore but I’ve seen childish delight and utter joy I’ve seen mothers and babies and skipping ropes and old couples holding hands and I think –that must be happiness…

I used to think that if you smiled all the time, you would be called a happy person they say fake it till you make it so I mastered the art of pretence, the faking part and now my mask is stuck …setting yourself challenges and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone because then life really starts, all the secrets and money that you stole from your mother’s purse. You hide it under your bed and hide it under your heart and   in between the red sock and the one that has teddy bears and stars on it.

And when your thoughts are chirping louder that the birds outside your window, your imagination takes off down the road that very pavement that you found yourself on, the doorstep.

The doorstep where you sat for forever and counted cracks and watched ants build their nests. And winter past and the green shoots began to grow and so did you

You grew big; you grew strong and, like a still wet sponge, absorbed the pollution of the world and delusion of its people,

People, like monsters in the fairy tale and Darth Vader attempts at humanizing things that are NOT HUMAN and trying to make sense of things that don’t make any sense at all.  But nothing, nothing talks louder than silence

And so while I’m still roaming the streets in search of a wonder cure for world peace, I might just chance upon happiness and find out that it was there all the time; I was just looking in the wrong place.

Nine Lives

 

The more I struggle, the more I strive

I keep moving on keep coming back alive

like a cat with nine lives im up to number 8

what will I do if the ninth comes too late?

The more I search, the less I find

Can’t really see with this broken mind

Will all my fears and dreams dissipate?

or has my bad luck sealed my fate?

Some say there’s no such thing as luck

Good luck, bad luck, any luck at all

They say you gotta pray, everyday, (that) someday

You’ll be saved from eternal death

You gotta know where to go high or low take a blow

but I say save your breath

Coz I don’t believe but maybe I should

If im gonna believe it better be good

if everyone is doing it does it mean it’s right?

Can you tell me how you sleep well at night?

What struggle is to you is different to me

Big or small whatever we see

Cant explain the pain again too ashamed im to blame for

struggle has two g’s

One for goodness and one for greatness

You don’t see it while you’re in it and even  years later

You’ll never know the reason, the person  or the hater

If you tell me again that everything is for the best

I might just  punch you right there in the chest

No you don’t get to knock me when i’m way down

Yo, just pull me up off the blunderground

Its funny how I keep on coming right back

I think with my heart (and) its off the beaten track

But now

Its my time

The ninth…

All these crazy insomniacs…

Insomnia. Sigh.. I get tired just thinking about it. I have delved deep into my nightmarish past and come up with a possible explanation as to why I have chronic insomnia. This is not a diagnosis, rather an understanding of it from my own view.

we develop healthy sleeping patterns from the way we are taught as kids. This takes into account routine, calm atmosphere and positive encouragement towards sleep.

but what if your life as a child was one of constant disarray, the only people that were calm were your neighbours, and you got tied to the bed, whipped and threatened with death if you did not shut up and go to sleep?

Fear kept me awake for hours on end, straining my ears for the familiar sounds of doom impending footsteps.. I learnt to recognise her breathing, her walk, her climb. Each was as familiar to me as my own name. When I was awake, I was somewhat in control. It was when I was sleeping she had free reign to do whatever she wanted. it was that paralysing fear, of being vulnerable, that kept me awake at night and subsequently evolved into a habitual lack of sleep which affects me until today.

Suicide

Massively triggered by my friends suicide, I went into shock. First came the repeated sentences, over and over.

”I cant believe shes dead. She did what? I cant believe shes dead. Suicide? I cant believe shes dead.”

Then came the rage, tearing in like an avalanche of rockets. Frustration and guilt and then an overwhelming deep pain.

I had a full blown panic attack. I hyperventilated. I threw up all over myself. For a while, I just had to concentrate on getting the next breath through my choked up windpipe.

Now I am numb. That is why I am able to write about it without banging my head on the wall or putting my hand through glass.

Everybody wanted to know the details. How did she do it? Why did she do it? Was she depressed?

I am not interested in the details. This is real for me, not just a soap opera. Ive been down the suicide path many times.

The pain, oh the pain… Only those who have been through it can know it… Well meaning people try to rationalise the pain but end up doubling it instead.

Why?

To Listen

‘To listen’is the biggest gift you could give any songwriter/artist 🙂

She's in Prison

‘I hear your music and I’m listening. Thank you for sharing a part of your soul in your art.’ That’s what I’d say if I could tell anyone who has ever written a song how much I appreciate their work and their passion.

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Its been a while…

I got busy with life.. I guess thats a good thing.. and slowly the novelty of having a blog to write in became to much of a chore so I just forgot about it. 

With my recent spurt of memories, flashbacks and nightmares, and the fact that Im almost finished my second year of university, has led me back to this blog. 

So much has happened. Life, for instance, it keeps happening. When it rains it pours, although in my case, it never stops pouring. I live in a torrential downpour of roller coaster emotions, events and circumstances that have me flying around carelessly, like a bull in a china shop, banging into walls and tripping over myself as I struggle to get through each day.

I guess thats the thing about abuse and the after effects. They never completely leave you. Sure you can distract yourself and most of us have found the necessary distractions that keep us from just ending it all, but I never feel at ease. Im chronically exhausted, my body keeps on reacting as though it is being abused. I wish I could tell it that its over but it refuses to let go. I have all these unexplained aches and pains, dissociation and I cant remember the last time I had even one hour of normal sleep.

Its just so unfair. 

I owe it to myself to ‘complain’ In real life, I never complain out loud. I minimise everything. Im working on allowing myself some self empathy. I think its important.