Sick Girl vs Strong kick-ass Woman


It was a kind thought this nurse had for me: "You can't be the sick girl. That's not you identy. You are a strong kick-ass woman."

I understand what she means and it made me feel good in some ways but she also missed something important: 

I never been anything but the sick girl. Invisible existence because people couldn't ever understand.

Sick girl was also at 18, in her first psych admit. In her 20s when sick girl found the trauma unit and it was where she lived, she never left, never out for more than a week before she would be brought back in pulsating red and blue comes back to stay months longer. Sick girl was quiet but she's spit out words at her intended targets which often ended up with them crying. Not sick girl 

Sick girl was in her 20's and tucked into her bed at night by her favorite nurse, always assigned to her every shift she worked. Sick girl's nurse. Sick girl's doctor was a kind of God to her and Sick Girl's social worker was the mother she needed who was wise and kind. Everything in order when Sick Girl's mind spun out as it did so frequently .

Sick girl has lived out her years in various hospitals and throen into a state hospital when all the lovely treaters couldn't take watching sick girl perish slowly in starvstion or maybe much faster when she cut her artery.

Sick girl has grown a lot and become less pouty. Still had an attitude and don't be afraid to call her a bitch because she owns that shit. But today she was different, didn't give thre new staff a hard time when she struggled to femember what to ask sick girl. Instead shf calmed her down and helped her along. Sick girl usually would have made minced meat out of her. Or anyone new brcadur this isndivk girls home and shrnknos everyone ever.

Then there is this other person I am seen as called strong kick-ass woman.. what is she doing here? We were doing just fine. Sick girl wants to be strong and kick ass at times but a woman? "Not me," she giggled. Sick girl is a aftermath of trauma where she had to be an adult. But by the time everyone else had grown up, sick girl got stunted in her teens. Throwing things at her therapist, scrolling in black sharpie on his wall, being held in a restraint "chair" and being pulled back from punching some guy in the face for bullying her friend.

Strong kick-ass woman is a warrior, an OG here, she has done it all and still has a veneer of innocence almost covered by how oversized her sunglasses are and the and the collection of piercings and tattoos. Maybe she works now as a peer specialist, she has her license and can get to where she's needed. Does strong kick-ass woman even think about sick girl anymore? Do they even relate? Could they possibly help one another with the healing that needs to take place? Join forces?

See there is this split that becomes confusing when you be survived trauma. You're the age when it happened, the aftermath when you're forced into adult roles. The age you're stuck at emotionally that may not match the chronology of physical age. I am this sick girl at heart. I do don't announce myself a woman,  my face contorts at what that would even mean; when I've been living in and out of hospitas, more in, causing problems, being diagnosed, scaring the shit out of people and those who saw not just no future for me but not even life

What am I letting go to become a a strong kick-ss woman? What do I lose if I'm not a sick girl? Maybe I'm afraid that the older I get the less people who's job it is to take of me will keep caring and just focus more on the younger ones.  Strong kick-ass woman seems self-sufficient and I am not but her roots are in sick girl and sick girl took all the pain and never had a good family, so shouldn't she howl up to strong kick-ass woman for help in how to live a life without Hospital home. Without pretending doctors fix all and the workers are her family. It's up to sick girl though. Maybe she's still to scared or maybe she wants out. We'll nhsve to find out

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