A Safe Place To Be Visible

[Not Alone]

Bach,
First, happy birthday. Here is a very big birthday hug to all of you and especially for Middle B. 

I don't know if this will make sense, because I am processing from what you wrote. I think there is a certain pain when there is hurt that we either blame on something  or someone else or from pain that we push down. There is a different pain when we allow ourselves to feel and experience the pain.

but I wonder if somewhere inside me there's a twisted sort of lust for that pain.


For a long time now I have been unable to cry real tears, and something about releasing all that strangely hot thick liquid felt therapeutic. I want to do it again. Maybe I'm just a masochist, or a tragedy-mongerer just like the mother. I'm so confused and so very tired of all of this.

I wonder if there is an almost joy or happiness in being able to feel and express the pain for what it really is. I have felt the desire to really feel the pain. To be able to feel it and express it honestly, and if the right person is there, to be heard; feels real, true, clean.

Again, I am processing from what you wrote, so I don't know if this makes sense. I don't think you're masochistic.

[Hope67]

Dear Bach,
I just wanted to send you a belated Birthday hug 
Hope 

[Bach]

I wonder if there is an almost joy or happiness in being able to feel and express the pain for what it really is. I have felt the desire to really feel the pain. To be able to feel it and express it honestly, and if the right person is there, to be heard; feels real, true, clean.

Exactly.  Thank you   

[Bach]

This morning I wanted come here and type out in bold and in all caps all the negative words about my life that I had in my head.  I don't remember what all of them were, but one of them was definitely "loser" and another was probably "unacceptable".  "Reject" was probably in there, too.  But before I did that, I read some other journals here and started formulating a response, which always takes longer than I think it will.  Then I had to work out over video with my trainer (I thought for many months that I couldn't deal with doing it over video, but around the end of last year I realised that I had to suck it up and do it.  I hate doing it over video, but not actually as much as I thought I would.  Win.  She says grimly).  I was in a very bad mood during my workout.  I told my trainer that I was not going to try to be positive because if I had to spend the energy on trying to generate or fake positivity, I wouldn't have enough left over to do the blanking workout, and getting through the workout was going to have to be enough.  So I did it, and I hated it, and I complained the whole time, and I could see on my trainer's face when we were done that he was just as relieved that it was over with as I was.  So I started to feel bad about my bad attitude and get upset about not having parted warmly as we usually do, but then I had a thought and wrote this:

I don't have to worry about people who love me deciding they don't love me anymore if I'm in a bad mood, because they know that the good mood me who they love will be back.  It is okay to be negative and in a bad mood as long as I am not being abusive and scapegoating others for my problems.

So after that, I'm still angry and sad and in pain and in a bad mood and not enjoying life at all, but I no longer feel the need to yell those negative words at myself. 

It was child-self who wanted to do that.  I'm not going to pin it to Little B or Middle B or any other B, because the children-selves have been reacting in unified misery and discouragement ever since the phone call I had yesterday with a newer health care practitioner who, contrary to absolutely every professional I've spoken to about my health in the past 30 years, told me that my high cholesterol IS a problem and that I need to address it through my diet.  I've always been told that although my cholesterol numbers are high, they are in balance and not high in the way that is supposed to be bad for you.  Like, literally, "It's not something you need to worry about."  But now somehow it is?  Now I'm going to need to find out how true this is or isn't.  Child-self EXPLODED on this woman in the face of something so discouraging and completely unexpected (especially on top of the similarly unexpected bad news a few weeks ago that I have developed osteoporosis in my spine), with storming and crying and tarry-black negativity. It was like a killing blow to small bright spirits that I have seen glimpses of recently.   But I'm not angry or upset with child-self.  I understand and have compassion.  The children-selves haven't liked this woman from Day 1, and I'm bemused at Adult-self for forgetting that, and not being better prepared to deal with her.  But we'll all forgive each other for all of this and carry on doing things, because we have to keep doing things whether we are happy and feel good or not. 

[Not Alone]

Bach, glad you stated to your trainer how you were feeling and didn't put on a fake positive attitude.

[dollyvee]

I don't have to worry about people who love me deciding they don't love me anymore if I'm in a bad mood, because they know that the good mood me who they love will be back.  It is okay to be negative and in a bad mood as long as I am not being abusive and scapegoating others for my problems.

This is great. I think a lot of us as children have been forced to push things down and not have a way to express them. And it's the distinction you made about not putting the negativity on other people but just expressing it. I think a lot of times people have trouble discerning the two and it makes them uncomfortable which we then take on, but it's not our responsibility. Also, for me, the gym is a way to destress and let those things out in a safe and healthy way (without going into being a weight-dropping crossfit bro - this might be a specific reference) 

Have you seen Pretend It's A City on Netflix? It's like all those feelings are allowed and valid. Loved Fran.

[Bach]

I've begun to understand that it is incredibly important for me to acknowledge my feelings and not minimise or deny them, even if doing so makes me and other people uncomfortable.  The quest to be acceptable to others is relentless and grinding.  notalone and dollyvee, thank you so much for your understanding and acknowledgement.  And, dollyvee, thank you for that show recommendation!  I have not seen it yet, but I will check it out next time I can lie down and take a couch-and-TV break.

[Not Alone]

This is great. I think a lot of us as children have been forced to push things down and not have a way to express them. And it's the distinction you made about not putting the negativity on other people but just expressing it. I think a lot of times people have trouble discerning the two and it makes them uncomfortable which we then take on, but it's not our responsibility.

I've begun to understand that it is incredibly important for me to acknowledge my feelings and not minimise or deny them, even if doing so makes me and other people uncomfortable.  The quest to be acceptable to others is relentless and grinding.

I relate to the struggle.

[Bach]

Trigger warning - Child abuse



















I wish my mother had just kept squeezing.

[Not Alone]

Bach, I tried highlighting and changing to text to black, but I wasn't able to read what you shared. 

[Bach]

notalone, thank you for replying. I don't know what happened but my post isn't there. It was really just a bunch of whining anyway 

I hope you are doing okay 

[Not Alone]

Bach, your feelings are important. 

[Hope67]

Bach, I agree with Notalone, that your feelings are important.   
Hope 

[Bach]

Hope and notalone, I appreciate your responses.  Thank you   

I'm a total mess right now.  I can't string two thoughts together.  I keep remembering bits of things that have happened in my life and feeling this wretched stew of fear and anxiety and anger and self-hatred.  I feel so frustrated that I can't get past this crap.  I wonder if I will ever feel good again. 

Trigger warning, child abuse.  In white.  It'll be there this time, I checked!

My mother tried to suffocate me when I was a baby.  She also did that when I was 9 or 10 years old, put her hands around my neck and squeezed until I started to black out.  I don't know why she stopped.  She did a lot of messed up things to me.  She was always taking me to doctors trying to find out what was "wrong" with me.  I think probably most of what was "wrong" with me is that she tried to suffocate me when I was a baby.
The malnutrition didn't help either.  But my mother did want a sick child.  There was that time that I told her I had blood in my poo.  She was very excited about that, until it turned out to just be a surface tear from my severe constipation, and not anything glamourous.  But I've written about this before.  There are so many other weird things I sort of remember, but my mind goes blank when I try to write or talk about them.  Also, they don't seem like such a big deal when I try to put them into words.  So maybe I've made all this up.  I want to die.  I wish I was dead.  I don't really feel that way.  I just want the suffering to stop.  I want to feel good.  Be happy.  Live.  Create.  Have friends.  Relax.  Be calm.  Feel good.  I said that already.  I cannot ^%&*)(&)^ tolerate this brain I have.  It's too much.  Why can't I make it stop?

I want to ask my mother whether her mother suffocated/strangled her.  I suspect that's where she learned it from.  In fact, I suspect that pretty much all the bad things she did to me were done to her.  I can't talk to her about it, though, because she would interpret it as absolution.  Why is it so important to me not to absolve her?  Some people say that forgiving your abuser sets you free, but to me, it feels like forgiving her would be negating myself and accepting forever that it wasn't them, it was ME.  I am so confused and in so much pain.  She's suffering right now too.  Her 94-year-old husband has dementia and is making her life *.  I haven't spoken to her, but my brother tells me.  We're not sure what's actually going on because she is, of course, a thoroughly unreliable narrator, but neither of us have any doubt that someone who was already a mean old man 50 years ago when he was healthy is no picnic to live with as a mean old man who keeps having health crises but somehow remains astonishingly durable.  I've been fighting an ugly urge to call her or write to her and taunt her under the guise of sympathy.  Self-preservation stops me for now, but I'm not sure what will happen after my brother moves 14 time zones away later this year.  Oh yeah, that's also happening.  I can't with this life.  I can't, I can't, I can't.
But I must.  I must.  And without drugs! 

[Blueberry]

Bach, I'm sorry I can't read anything like that atm but I want to send you some care and if it's safe, then a  If not safe, then ignore.