mute

I have so much to say, but I don't think the words I need have been invented yet.

Diagnosis

Well, it's official. I got the results of my sleep study, and I have Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

I have suspected that I have had sleep apnea, ever since I found out that this disorder existed, and recognized how many of my sleep problems match it precisely. However, I didn't know the finer points, or that there were different forms of apnea. The next step now that I'm diagnosed is going in for a second sleep study, this time with a CPAP machine so they can find out what level of oxygen I'll need in order to prescribe the setting I will need for the machine I will get to use at home.

This could be the beginning of a new chapter for me, as my sleep disorders have been ruining my life. I am usually awake all night and asleep all day. I sleep through multiple alarm clocks, and I have problems staying awake if I manage to get up too early. I also have low energy, and many other symptoms from the apnea. It causes confusion, fogginess, memory loss, irritability, depression, high blood pressure, and more. It's a really nasty deceptive disorder. I believe I have had it for years, based on my snoring, and people around me who have heard me stop breathing during the night. At long last, I am finally going to be getting treatment. I think this is going to be a major positive change in my life! I can't wait, really. Yay Rah!

I Resign As My Father's Keeper: Effective Immediately

Rage. Pure rage.

I can't even find the words for what is pouring off my skin.

I called my father. He said things that were so frustrating, then when I got exasperated he told me to calm down. I told him I can't, so he hung up on me. He just doesn't understand how he pushes people to the brink and then when they react, he sits there calmly and acts like it's you that is insane. He thinks it's just this one phone call, just this exchange that I am reacting to?! It's my whole life, it's everything he has ever done. I have tried to forgive him. I have taken care of him. I have made huge sacrifices and suffered on his behalf. I have tried to help him. I have been his parent to no avail. I have tried to give him good counsel and steer him in the right directions, only to have him ignore my advice, make awful decisions which I then end up paying for dearly, right alongside of him. Yet he wonders why I am upset. He wonders why my patience for him has shortened considerably.

I want a paternal divorce. I want him out of my life. I don't want my fate linked to his anymore. I only want to suffer for my own mistakes, not his. I want to breathe. I want to feel possibility, freedom, AIR.

My father is choking the life out of me. I can't deal with it anymore. I don't know how to get free, but I will, I have to.

All of my anger, all of my unweildy feelings have been turning inward and killing me through depression. It's time for that to stop. It's time for me to take a stand for myself and say NO! No No No!!! No I will not be swallowed whole. No I will not pay for your sins. No I will not grease the wheel. No I will not be sacrificed on your altar anymore. No I won't be your surrogate wife. No I won't be your companion. No I am not on this earth to take care of you until my best years have been spent and my life is over. No I am not here to be your confidant, to chase your loneliness away, to substitute for friends your own age, to be everything my mother wasn't. NO.

Reasons to be cheerful: part zero

I wish I could think of one good reason to be alive. I'm really searching for one right now.

I know I suffered a trauma recently. One I don't even want to talk about here. Is that why? I don't know.

My one best friend tells me to find a therapist. The drugs don't work anymore. My simpleton shrink recommended I be industrious (as if I haven't been working hard enough just to fucking survive). Yes, I shall become a Captian of Industry; because we all know that's the cure for everything.

I can't find any redemption in reality. Nothing appeals to me. Except being left the fuck alone. Yes, I have a bad attitude. What's new pussycat?

The things I have to face next are no more appealing than what has gone before.

I'm sick of wasting my life stuck in this life.

I exist on a short tether, which is getting shorter by the day.

I don't know why my parents had children when they should have had indentured servants. My father has already told me what I'm going to do next, but he never asked.

I wish I could disappear. If only I could commit a crime, or get see some deed committed that would get me put into the witness protection program, and none of my family would ever find me and fuck up my life again. Hell, I've already lost 37 years, I think I should be entitled to the next 37 on my own terms.

If I can't get away from them, living like this will surely make me want to die.

perspective

This is how I know it really doesn't matter. This little faux loss. This theatre. It's small in the midst of life, the things truly on my mind: death, destruction, God, money, body, loss, madness...other things I won't name.

I'm detached. I can forget that he even exists. I spent hours without even thinking of him. I am self-contained. I have been hurt too many times to even love someone. It's not real. I thought I cared. I probably don't. I can't anyway. Because I only love the wrong people. If it's even love. How the fuck would I even know at this point. I don't even trust what I feel.

I want to cry and curl up somewhere in a bed in a fetal position and not come out. I want the world to go away and leave me here, forget me, please, everyone that has every known me, forget. Let me go.

list

There are only a few things I like without reservation:

The rain falling against the side of a house or a window, making its sound
A cool dark room
Soft covers against my bare skin - blankets, or throws
Good food
Art that brings me to tears - a film, a book, a poem, a painting, music
Something visually arresting - the curve of a spine, a piece of clothing, an arrangement of objects on a table, a building, or room that sings to me
Autumn
Night time
The Moon

hesitation

My stomach was in knots all evening. I was going to call him and tell him that I thought we had some fundemental differences that we might not be able to overcome. I was dreading it. I kept putting it off, almost not calling him at all. I finally called him at 2am. I couldn't say anything because we started talking and laughing and he was nothing but the man I have come to so adore. I'm torn.

I didn't want to be rid of him. Not at all.

He teases me like he's known me forever. We banter. We laugh. I enjoy him so thoroughly. I can't quite reconcile the darkness to his goofy lovability. But I understand. I have both sides too.

What to do? what to do?
______________________________________________________

I know something else too. I know that the truth of he and I is somewhere in between the gothic romance and the legacy of damage. The truth is, he's not as evil as I've painted him, and I'm hardly as good as I make myself out to be. We're just two lost souls searching for a home. We've found a place within each other that feels soft, warm, and comforting. It feels more like home than the place I had in others, even after years of being by their sides. I have known him less than a week. That seems impossible, unfathomable. He's reached deeper into me than boyfriends I've had for years. Ones that I tried to make myself known to, who never understood me after years by my side. Just this knowing he has of me can be frightening on its own; because just as I spent years trying to be known, I've spent many more hiding.

It is a terrible and beautiful thing to be known, utterly intuitively known, without having to speak a word. No explanations, no defenses, just pure being, moment after moment. This feeling is a happiness I cannot explain. It is part of what makes me want to hold on. It is something so rare that it is difficult to give it up for any reason. I don't know how to let go of the one I have searched my entire life to find.

And finally, I don't know what the ultimate truth is. Is it what I feel in my heart, my soul, and every cell in my body throbbing, or is it what I know in my head - in logos, reason, prior knowledge, or is it what I sense only in my spirit? What is the highest compass for this decision? How can I know which part of me is right?

Off the Map: the b-side of the story

Now for the harsh cruel slap of reality version of the prior post:

I'll strip off the romantized gothic bullshit and the fantasy, and I'll tell the sad, evil, and ugly truth beneath all the delerious scenarios we've created.

I met someone. Someone who felt (feels?) so close to me, understands so much of me. I recognize him. He recognizes me. We found each other out of a sea of people. We were looking for a familiar. We are both fucked up, yet strong in our own ways. We are both survivors. We are both victims of child sexual abuse. We've had unspeakable things done to us. We have become unspeakable people deep down inside. We need things other people don't need. Things that are wrong, things that are perverse, that hurt, that break every taboo, that go to a realm beyond a place most people could even conjure in their mind.

There is a difference between he and I though: he feels no guilt. He has gone to a place where there is no such thing as sexual immorality really. In that regard he's ammoral. Probably a sociopath, or on some borderline thereof. I don't know if it's all his fault. The things he has been through would turn a lesser man insane. He holds down a decent job, has goals for the future, and is going back to school. He still has so much love in his heart, is so tender, and caring. He loves cats. He loves making me laugh. He wants to be with me. We've talked about getting married, about having children, becoming a family. The words forever have been used. The "I love you's" have been said, and meant, on both of our parts. But he scares me so deeply. He would lead me to do all the things that I don't let myself do. I keep my demons on a short leash. He lets his run wild.

He's Catholic. He goes to Mass once in a while. Volunteers at the old age home. He reads his Bible. Maybe he prays sometimes. He told me he hasn't gone to confession in a long time because he's not sorry for what he's done. He says he will go one day again. He seems to think that being absolved from a man called Father will clean his slate. so he can say his hail Mary's or do his acts of contrition, and then go do more of the same. I can't do that. My God is in my heart. I am always conscious of my sin. No one can take it from me but The One who made me.

He says he wants to free me. He believes I will free him. But the freedom he offers me would most likely make me nothing more than a dog returning to my own vomit. I can't free him, because he doesn't want freedom, he wants debasement. He wants to be pulled further down and succumb to the abyss. He thinks this will be our freedom. That we will become a couple that can do anything we want, indulge any fantasy, make anything happen that we want, no matter how perverse, and that we can call it Love. We will use other people as props to fullfill us, and then discard them as if they were just scenery in our play; well, they would be. Men, women, or male dogs -- it's all the same to him. He feels no shame. He has no limitations. He's the unbridled Id. He is a monster, created by the 19 year old babysitter who used him at age 5, and the next one, the suburban wife and mother with the dog who warped him even more at age 12. He's turned his damage into an orientation to survive; better to be turned on by all the abuse you've suffered than to mourn it, than to feel the weight of its tragedy shadow you through days and nights, and so he's let it warp him, he turns it into fantasy fodder, and he survives. But he is Not Free.

And what about me? I know that I still have a chance. I still feel guilt and shame. I still believe that there are things that are fundementally wrong. I believe in Good & Evil. I believe in answering to my God outside of any church, or any religious framework. I know what is right in my heart of hearts. I know that I can never ever be with this person. I know that my love is not enough to save him. I know that he will drag me down more than I will be able to pull him up. I know that he will lead me into unspeakable darkness because he is my shadow side. He is the side of myself that I repress, supress, beat into submission, pray to be delivered from. He's the devil in the flesh, and I've been an angel falling...

I must stop here, before I fall any further.

Off the Map

That's where I've been.

But I know that I can't go where I've been going.

"Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

To be seduced by a Vampire...

To feel the werewolf at my throat...we're in the forest with the full moon shining through the trees, the sound of rustling branches, and leaves crackling under foot as he comes up behind me...I feel his breath on my neck...I feel his claws raking my sides...I've waited for him for so long, and finally...finally he is here, claiming me bestially, and I am feral and completely myself.

To be swallowed whole by the night and claimed by my dark Master...

Flirting with disaster.

This could be the end of me.

Maybe I want it to be.

:::

Yet there is a frail pitiful lamb bleating beneath the din: "no...no...no..." She cries. "Run away, run now, before it is too late...please listen to me..."

And the part of me that knows begins to cry, for I can never have what I want. Never.

Zing Boom!

it's oh so quiet

it's oh so quiet
it's oh so still
you're all alone and so peaceful until...
you fall in love
zing boom!
the sky up above
zing boom!
is caving in
wow bam!
you've never been so nuts about a guy
you wanna laugh you wanna cry
you cross your heart and hope to die
'til it's over and then it's nice and quiet
but soon again starts another big riot
you blow a fuse
zing boom!
the devil cuts loose
zing boom!
so what's the use
wow bam!
of falling in love?

it's oh so quiet
it's oh so still
you're all alone and so peaceful until...
you ring the bell
bim bam!
you shout and you yell
hi ho ho!
you broke the spell
gee, this is swell
you almost have a fit
this guy is 'gorge' and I got hit
there's no mistake this is it!!!

'til it's over and then
it's nice and quiet
but soon again
starts another big riot
you blow a fuse
zing boom!
the devil cuts loose
zing boom!
what's the use
wow bam!
of falling in love?

the sky caves in
the devil cuts loose
you blow blow blow blow blow your fuse
when you've fallen in love

ssshhhhhh...

-Betty Hutton (& a swell cover by Bjork)

"Janine I drink you up
Janine I drink you up
If you were the Baltic sea
and I were a cup, uh huh..."

-soul coughing

Just when I least expected it. Possibility. So unstoppable that it scares me. I laugh at all of his banter because I can't help it. I am charmed though I want to be immune. I go soft when he is supple. I go light into his darkness, he goes light into mine. He's my shadow and my beacon. He's my other and my twin. He is smart and silly. He is passion and intensity. He wants to be my best friend, my lover, my Daddy, my boy, my confidante, my cradle, my hope, my home. I want to doubt him, but he seems to have enough love for the both of us. Maybe I should just say YES.

pointless

I'm really thinking of trashing this blog. I mean fuck it, no one is reading this anymore. I might as well be working on writing my book.

Syonara.

The Shaking

No one can tell me this world isn't changing. Look at the signs. These are the birth pangs.

It has just begun.

Hold On.

...and another thing...

I'm currently reading James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" which I wanted to read before it was picked for Oprah's book club. God love her and all, but everything loses some coolness points once it becomes a selection. Anyway, I was going to read it when I saw Frey on the cover of Poets & Writers magazine and read the story on him. My thing is memoirs, personal essays, creative non-fiction, etc. so I am always interested to see what other people are up to in this regard. Plus, I honestly like reading memoir, as well as attempting to write it.

So anyway, here is my assessment: at times his style is utterly maddening. I really don't like his whole -- "I walked in, and pulled out a chair and then I sat down in the chair. He walked in and he pulled out his chair, and he sat down in it. yadda yadda" That is fucking annoying. That is not a direct Frey quote, but a stab at his style. However...the other stuff, when he's not writing like that, is powerful, raw and honest.

I came to a serious conclusion about myself while reading it too. This conclusion is not one I haven't come to before, but it's one that is prickly to put it mildly, and often likes to make it's way under the carpet with some help from me, kicking and shoving it into the darkness where it can no longer be seen. I'm even drawing out this explanation. I'm stalling. Avoiding. Of course. The fact is: I am an addict. I don't know how long I've been an addict, but more than half my life for sure. I have been addicted to different things like Frey is addicted to alcohol and drugs. I've been addicted to food, to sex, to s/m, to a particular person, at times, when I let myself, it was easy for me to start becoming addicted to substances, but I always cut those off when I felt them pulling on me, as if food is better, when it's ruined my life just as much. I've suffered horrible consequences from some of the other addictions as well, things I can't even bear to speak of. They have all been self-destructive, just not in that searing, obvious way of alcoholism and drug addiction. I have sometimes wished my demons were closer to the surface, so well-meaning friends would put their hands on my shoulders and say the stock phrases: "Will you please get yourself some help?" So they'd look at me with doe-eyed concern and sympathy, stage last ditch interventions on my behalf. Instead, I walk the world with hidden pain, killing me slowing and secretly, but still, killing me.

Frey describes some of his time in rehab without drugs and alcohol and how he turned to overeating, just to be full, to fill up the emptiness, to abuse something, to make himself sick, and I saw myself. I thought about it tonight when I sat on my couch itching with a nameless need for something. Anything. But I wasn't hungry. Not physically anyway. I decided to wait until I got hungry so I could have something. I'm not even sure I even made it to hungry before I thought of something good to make. I cooked and ate the whole box of what I made. I thought maybe I'd leave some for leftovers, but it tasted too good, and besides, part of the point is to do it till it's no longer right, no longer normal or okay. Afterwards I felt full. I felt silenced. The gnawing dread was gone, replaced by shame, disgust and sadness. I'm not sure if I made it to regret, well aware that somehow I need this to dull the pain right now. This is why I never got truly addicted to alcohol or weed, because both are depressants, and with my depression, they only make me feel worse before too long, whereas food soothes me, calms me down, comforts me. Yet at the same time, I know when I overeat, there is a side of me that is using it to punish myself. I remember what I confessed to the best therapist I ever had, a number of years ago, I told her that if I made too much food for myself, and I got full before it was done, I'd force myself to finish it, even if it became very physically painful...it was like I was intent on punishing myself for the hunger, or the initial impulse to eat emotionally, and I was determined to make myself pay for it. I know somehow, in some way, this relates to the child rape and psychological abuse I endured from my perp, but I can't delve anymore, because when I get to this door, I just want to stop, turn, and run away, and I do, and I am.

My life is brutal

I'm getting tired. I hope I can make it through this time, and come out the other side. The entire summer was fraught with bad news, hard times, loss & tragedy (and I'm only talking about my own life, let alone what was happening to people all over, as it has certainly been a dark time for folks across the country as well, and in far more immediately life threatening ways).

I was looking forward to Fall (my favorite season) to bring some relief, but things kept going awry. September was lost in a blur of troubles, and was an Indian Summer, so it didn't even feel like Autumn had arrived yet, just an extension of the muggy New York summer. In temperature and tone. More of the same. The poisonous, tragic, stifling same.

Tonight I sat on my couch and wondered: "Do I have a second act in me?"

I know if I keep existing this way, it will be a continual living death for me. Something has to change, or my life will kill me before my body gives up the ghost, because I know my consciousness can't bear much more of this. If I have to keep going this way, I will probably end my life at some point, rather than have to endure the rest of it. I've died inside so many times already and I can't keep mustering the will to come back. One day, I'm afraid I'll just let myself slip away. I've lost so much of my "fight". I guess that happens when you keep trying to get better and move forward and life keeps kicking you in the teeth. It's difficult to keep my resolve, and find any strength left in my inner reservoirs. I've been a survivor all of my life; I'd like to finally move on to doing better than just surviving. I'm getting so exhausted from holding onto my life by my fingernails. I'm also starting to wonder what the point of hanging on is...

fable

Sleeping princess, pricked my finger on a spinning wheel, fell into a stupor for years...years gone and wasted, while I dreamt and had nightmares, and generated long grey hairs... I woke up with silvery hair at my knees, cobwebs on my face...my eyes had to learn to open...my limbs numb and silent, my bones brittle. I taught my limbs to feel so I could move to try to pull off my spiderweb shroud. I tried to use the hands I couldn't feel to rip through the thick layers that had formed around me like twisted tapestry. My nails so long they curled and could not help me tear through. Trapped inside but still alive I waited...for strength to return to me, so I could get up and run away.