PunkOnFire's blog

On days like this, I feel like sitting in the closet with a bottle of wine. In the dark. Alone.

On days like this, I feel like running away. Somewhere far away from here. Somewhere I can forget, forget everything and everyone and just exist.

On days like this, I want to write. I want to write everything, cut open my soul and let it all just bleed out until there is nothing left and the pages are stained with the blood of my story and myself. Then maybe it wouldn't hurt anymore.

No, it doesn't hurt everyday. It doesn't hurt everyday because I say it doesn't. Mind over matter. If I say it isn't there, it makes it go away. Yes, it does come back and haunt me now and then. But I can always make it go away again. And again.

I really don't have time to feel like this.

On days like this, I don't want to be me. I don't want to be anyone. And if I could, I would let myself melt into the floor and disappear. Cease to exist.

On days like this, I think of my dad's favorite movie - It's A Wonderful Life. That movie paints a dismal picture of what it would be like, all the ways it would be worse, if one man had never been born. But I think there is another side to that coin. I think there's a happier side to that story. What about the people that man might have hurt in his life? What about the hurt that was done to him? Perhaps there is pain that could have been avoided.

So I write. I don't write about me, but I do write about me. I don't cut open my soul and make a huge gaping wound that lets everything fall out all over the place, but I make little scratches on the surface. I let that tiny ribbon of me weave it's way in and out of whatever stories my imagination might let go. And for now, it will suffice. But sometimes? It feels like it's not enough.

On days like this, I need a bigger release. I need to break free.

Many things have popped into my head lately that I have wanted to say here. But it seems like by the time I have a chance to sit down and say them, they've already managed to float off into the ether..

I kind of like it that way.

If I stay busy enough, I can push just about anything away. Sure, it's not really a very good habit when it comes to 'working through things' or making progress in being able to trust and allow intimacy in my life.. but it leaves me feeling more on top of things and more in control of life. It leaves me feeling more content and more able to function.

I'm getting back to 'normal'.

With each time I push those feelings away, I put another stitch in the gaping wound that was ripped open a bit more than a year ago.. I'm tired of bleeding. I want it to stop. A wound can't heal if it's left open, right? So I'm going to close it up myself.

There are certain things about my life that I have to just accept. I can't have it all, I can't be 'whole' - whatever that means. I can't be open and trusting and 'intimate' and also be able to function. It's too exhausting and terrifying and unfamiliar. It leaves me immobilized and shivering in the corner. It leaves me wanting to run for cover and wanting to cut off and isolate myself. I can't handle it. And, honestly, I don't want to handle it. Trusting people has never really done anything good for me. So I give up. I'm done. It's time to stand on my own two feet and brace myself against the world, I'm sick of being hurt. I'm done.

I guess, in a way this is my version of 'getting over it'. It's amazing how much infidelity and abuse have in common. The feelings they evoke, the damages they cause, the reactions they garner from outside people.. So very much the same. Personally, I think infidelity is probably the worst form of emotional abuse that there is. In both cases you'll find many friends growing tired of 'hearing about it' and wondering why the hurt person won't just 'let go', 'move on', and 'get over it'. Believe me, if we could, we WOULD. If I could just find some way to make myself 'okay with it', that would be super. But I haven't found that yet. The only strategy I have found that works for me is simply not allowing myself to think about it.

But not dealing with it, not working through it, not 'healing', makes me paranoid. How long is he going to put up with a wife who can't figure out how to trust him? It took YEARS to reach a point where I felt like I could fully and confidently trust him.. and then he betrayed me. So why would I even want to get there again? Not much incentive for him to want to stay with me, now is it? So I just resign myself to accepting the idea that there will probably come a day when he's just done and decides to go. I hope that day doesn't come until the kids are grown. Still, I feel awful expecting him to stick around. He deserves to have a wife who loves AND trusts him. Someone he can really be close to, be intimate with. Why should he have to stay with me and be lonely? That certainly isn't going to do him any good.

It's not that I don't trust him at all. I do. But I can't stop my brain from wondering what really goes on in his daily life. Why should I 'just believe' anymore? It's not that I'm choosing to wonder, it's not that I want to be suspicious.. it just happens. At least I know that he can understand that. He knows what it's like to be uncontrollably paranoid - only he's never had any reason to be. Sometimes it's hard to not be angry at the unfairness of that, but it would be a waste of time and energy. So I resist.

I suppose it's all just the consequences of being with someone so 'out of my league'.

So I keep busy. I keep busy so that I don't think about it. I can do it. I can stay busy enough to just push through it and get to the other side, right? Someday it will go away, I'll get over it. But I will NOT let down my guard again. I can't afford to do that anymore.

Body image. Sexuality. Trust. Respect. Love. Personal space. Boundaries.

Through my life, these words have meant little to me. After being a young child who had her innocent love and affection taken advantage of, it was hard to expect anything less for the rest of my childhood and teen years. I accepted it as a way of life. I never really felt my body was my own, or that I had much control over what happened to it. In my mind, I was simply a non-entity. I was an object. I honestly didn't care. And in some ways, I enjoyed the attention I received. It made me feel good, feel like I was worth something, feel like I was special.

Because that's how it made me feel when I was a child. But I knew it was wrong. I knew it was bad. And I knew I had to keep it a secret.

But it wasn't hurting me. I liked it. And I didn't understand that that attention, that affection, that interest, didn't extend beyond the bedroom. It didn't continue when the door was open. When that door opened, I ceased to exist. I am a non-entity. I am invisible.

So of course I liked to be noticed. I liked being wanted. I loved the way boys looked at me. It made me feel special, it made me feel wanted, it made me feel like I mattered in some way to someone.. and it made me feel like a slut. I knew that it was wrong. I knew it was bad. And I knew I had to keep it a secret.

I don't really recall ever telling anyone 'Please don't touch me.' I let them. And I let them, and I let them, and I let them. And the few times I was asked, the few times I was not just offered a choice but presented with the decision, I didn't know what to do. It scared me. So much power. Someone was putting the control in my hands, handing over the power to choose. It scared me, and I didn't know what to do. But it sparked love, and it made me actually want. Truly want, for the right reasons. Want because I felt safe, because I felt valued and respected. It was so new. And I was 17. I realized, even then, that this empowerment came from this man partly as a method of self-preservation and self-protection. He was much older than I and had a lot to lose if I were to accuse him of ill-intent. Little did he know that he was opening my eyes to something foreign, something new. Something I wasn't ready for.

He knew I wasn't ready. And despite my wanting, he decided to wait.

And to hear later from a boy I had dated on and off for 2 years that he knew he could have had his way with me, but he didn't because of the love and respect he had for me? It blew my mind. To know that there I was before him, and he knew that he could have me, but didn't because he knew how much it would hurt me. He knew because I had poured out my heart to him, as a trusted best friend, after I'd lost my virginity at 15 about how much I regretted it. How it wasn't worth it. How I wished I could take it back and I wasn't so sure I even wanted it in the first place. He knew how much I hurt and how I hated myself for doing it. He had no interest in making me feel that way again. It baffled me.

My husband sees these habits. He is so aware of them, more than I am sometimes. And it has occurred to me that I don't have to be that way. I can own my body. It may sound odd for a woman of nearly 30 years to say 'I don't have to let you touch me'. But truly.. it's an awakening for me. I'm not saying that I've had some radical breakthrough and that I'm somehow better.. Because I'm not. And I struggle more now than when hid in the safety of being a non-entity.. honestly, I'm still in that place. In my mind 'I' still don't exist. But I see now that it's not the only place I can be.

But I fear consequences. The idea of denying my husband anything frightens me. I don't feel that I can afford to do that if I want to keep him, if I want to keep him interested. And the very act of admitting that I'm not in the mood, or would rather not, spurs panic. Panic and terror that I'm going to lose him, or that he might cheat again. He assures me that he won't. But the mind is not so easily reprogrammed.

And I'm still scared.