When Can We Go Back?

I’ll bring the dolls and meet you there.

That is what it feels like a lot of the time. I plaster on a smile and we all play pretend. If we ignore the fact that Brenda is insane then it will blend into the background again like before and we can skip on rainbows.

As I have said before, people get uncomfortable around sadness, depression, anything other than hunky dory. I get that. I feel the same way sometimes. I want to wish it all away so the person doesn’t feel bad and that things can be like they were. 

So we play the game. You ask me a couple of nondescript questions and then launch into how your life is going. You say you want to get together and then when we do, it’s sunshine and bubbles. We dance around the elephant in the room, we both know it’s surface stuff, and then we wonder why we don’t connect anymore.

“Hi. How are you doing?” is not even a question I want to hear. It’s nice and socially acceptable as the thing to say, but that is exactly why I don’t want to hear it. If you really care, ask me something specific. “Are you still hanging in there?” “Have you had any bad dreams lately?” I don’t know! Just something other than “how are you” because that answer is going to be the same all the time until I can exclaim otherwise. Whatever it may be, just don’t blanket it and think there is concern being felt by the receiver.

No, I am not directing this at anyone in particular so do not run away with your thoughts and think that this is aimed toward you specifically. I could make posters out of this and plaster them around the entire city!

I don’t get together with anyone right now or chat on the phone because I don’t want to play. I don’t want to pretend. I am in the middle of some dark shit and I don’t have the energy to mess with ignoring reality. Candyland is not where I exist right now. I have to play the pretend game with so many people in my life. When I do anything that has to do with the board or the center in general I have to put on such a thick mask that I can barely hold it up anymore. With my mother, my mask is huge. With some friends my mask is tied on tightly. Any family members that I am not completely comfortable with gets a good mask too.

I have a hard time requesting what I need. I have difficulty showing my inner emotions. Anger freaks me out. I have been taught that my feelings do not matter and that expressing them goes against the shell of my family. I was told that my ideas are stupid and that I am useless. I could not cry in front of anyone, I could not make a scene about anything, I did not and do not know how to trust healthily. I was the show girl for every one and now I can’t stand to be in the spotlight. I learned that if I shoved it all down, if I became completely submissive to my world that I would survive. I have survived. However, it doesn’t feel good. I hate myself. I loathe who I am.

There it is. I have been asked to stay alive by certain people. I am here for them. It sucks that it’s not for myself, but it is what it is. I am in so much therapy it’s unbelievable. I am working on all of this shit but I feel like I’m stuck in the mud up to my throat. I hear the tools, I learn the information but I cannot seem to apply it yet.

In group today we went around and had to say what we learned today. Everyone said something about the book. You know what I said? First I passed because I didn’t want to say it out loud. But, then Bill has a way of pulling things out of me by how he asks questions and pursues things. So, I said “I learned that I am a lost cause”. He told me that I had courage for saying that in front of everyone. Then we went into a discussion about whatever that had to do with it. I just felt all eyes on me and had a difficult time pushing aside the large ringing sound in my ears. Bill asked me if there was anger that went along with the feeling of being a lost cause. Of course there is. At myself. He told me that my homework is to get something old, not working, like a printer, monitor, tv, whatever, and “beat the shit out of it”. Get a baseball bat, take it out in my backyard and go at it. Then I am to report next week how that experience was for me. The thought of showing anger in such an outward way scares the crap out of me. I think it would feel fantastic to do. I watched an episode of Celebrity Rehab one time when they took the group out to a car junkyard. They gave each person a bat and told them to hit the cars. There were no consequences, no right or wrong, just go out there an beat them up. Once in a while Dr. Drew would say something to trigger a feeling or memory that would get the person really upset so they could get more of those feelings out onto the car. I thought that was the most amazing therapeutic thing ever. Since then I have always wanted to do that. But, how can you beat up a car without getting arrested? So, instead, Bill and Anne suggested the things I mentioned above.

I teared up in group when I talked about being a lost cause. I did not let a drop fall, but they were on the edge. I swallowed it down. Took a deep breath. I’m not ready. I don’t trust enough yet.

The fact that I am still here sucks to me. But here I am, trying to claw my way through and unlearn all that I have been taught and trained so that I can at least attempt to wake up one morning…one fucking morning…not disappointed that I took a breath.

Will I get better? When will I get better? What if this is it for me? What if this is who I really am? I don’t know. I wish I did because this is seriously rough as hell. I want to go into some normal mode too.  What is that anyway?  As a friend of mine said the other day, if other people think this is hard on them to see you this way then what must you be feeling and going through. It’s not about them and how they feel about what you are experiencing, it’s your situation, it’s your feeling, it’s your experience. She is so very right.

My friends, my family, the whole word in general, I want to know what is going on with you. I want to be a part of your life. I want to laugh and have fun. But let’s just not play the pretend game.

Ignoring it will really not make it go away.