fear of life

I'm not afraid to die, but I am afraid to live. That is not what I planned on; in fact, I have already outlived myself, lived beyond what I had planned on growing up. I never saw much of a future for myself and I still do not. I was told early on that I would die or live out the rest of my life in a state hospital. I got out of the state hospital and though I've had close calls with death many times, I am still somewhat here. I say somewhat because I feel that I am existing and not living. My life is still a mess of hospitalizations and suicide attempts, frequent self-harm episodes and major food restriction. I am not convinced I want to be here.

What would it mean to live? To me living is giving up. It's saying the trauma that happened to me can be healed when I don't believe I will ever recover from it. To get better from it seems to say it wasn't bad enough to kill me when it was. I do not forgive or forget. I do not wish to move on with my life as though it didn't change me for all eternity. I still wish for a slow suffering.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

object permanence or lack thereof

All of my life I have struggled with something as basic as object permenance that toddlers learn; that people and things continue to exist when out of sight. When I was in long term care it was at the point where I would be in the same room with someone and have to ask, crying, if they were still there. If my doctor, when behind the desk and out of sight, still existed. My nurse would tuck me in at night and leave, returning the morning, and it was as if I would never see her again. And when I was alone it felt as though I had stopped existing because there was no one there to reflect me back. This was crippling to me. I never learned to internalize the presence of others. I lived in fear, I could not be alone without feeling as if I and everyone I loved stopped being when I couldn't see them. This is absolute agony. My first experience of being mirrored back happened with my therapist Jason. He would look at me and I could see myself in his eyes. It was terrifying at first, almost...
Read more

on drama

Image
Growing up I was the least dramatic. Silent, not speaking. Not expressing pain in medical procedures, learning to deny all physical pain altogether to others and then to myself. Denying wants and needs. Not expressing emotions, thoughts, feelings to anyone and then diminishing them to myself, discounting, telling them to shut up, that they weren't important, werent even real. Learning never to complain or bother or exist.  Cutting when I was in the unbearable emotional pain I told myself I had no reason to feel, a cut being a reason something was wrong, something to point to. Bandage and fix. Proof of something. No one could know. Then people knew and I got horrible reactions from medical professionals but no reaction from my family. I was bad for doing it and crazy and deeply ashamed of hurting myself. I was fucked up. Then I was screaming with it, more and more extreme and outrageous and reckless attacks on myself but then witnesses to hurt and scare to share my horror my death ...
Read more

the invisible girl

I have been in a lot of treatment and met many people who got the help and attention, intervention, early on. I am not one of those people, though I needed that help desperately. My mother describes me as a very young child to be outgoing and bubbly, scaring away other children in the playground with my overwhelming friendliness. I was afraid of nothing. But by the age of 5 there was a split in who I was. That happy child morphed into a sad, depressed little girl. I shut down completely, lost my voice and rarely spoke. My kindergarten teacher commented to my mother that she was concerned I never smiled. My third grade teacher also expressed concern. My mother's response? "That's just how Caitlin is." I would cry at night and not have the words for what was wrong and she just would get frustrated. I was wordless. The Unsayable had me destroyed. But that's not who I was originally. My trauma changed who I was. It altered the person I was supposed to be, suicidal tho...
Read more