the least of my worries

I am not like this by active choice. I work so hard, every fucking day, to see things correctly and process new things in the best estimation of a normal way I can muster. But the truth is, I do not process things normally, my perspective is skewed, and the world I see is not the same world that exists around me.

The work I do isn’t enough for people. I am still called crazy. I am still looked upon with disdain and distaste. I am still judged by standards that are not fair to me. I can’t get there right now. But I try. I try every day. I spend a lot of time accepting what I am told, meeting expectations that are grade levels above my head. I am a good student.

I am a person in here. I have terrors inside of me that you wouldn’t believe. And those are just the remaining ones. Others have been put down, forever lost but leaving behind still-healing scar tissue. I do the best with the bits and pieces that fragment my neurotransmitters. I think my synapses have floaters, like the ones my eyes have. Whichever way I look, they move and lurk and hover ominously until I can readjust my vision and see them as drifty, happy amoebas with smiley faces and floppy antennae. But if I blink, if I avert my eyes for even a second, they bare teeth and horrifying glares. It is exhausting trying to see and synapse happy amoebas for a length of time.

And I always feel like I am to apologize for my view of life. I am to apologize for seeing and perceiving differently. Why can’t the other people put forth even one-eighth the effort I do to try to be kinder, gentler. Why can’t someone say, hey, I see you. I see you struggle and I understand this is difficult for you. You try so hard, every day. But I love you even when you are screwed up, even when you have bizarre suspicions and whacked out intuitive impulses. I may not understand why or how you see and why and how you are, but I believe in you and I know you will get through this. Why can’t people just make it easier, just for one minute?

Sometimes, I wonder if these people would try as hard as I do. I don’t feel like they try as hard as I do now, and they are the ones with the ability to be normal, to see normal, to act normal. I guess they can’t be or see or act abnormal. Sometimes, I feel their pity. I definitely feel that disdain and distaste.

I have stretched my inner resources so thin. I have moved as far as I can for now. I am where I am. I am who I am. And if my pain and inability to blindly trust are too much, I guess I am better off back in my alone hole. I am used to it there. It’s home. My senses have been in a hotel for months. With itchy blankets and bleachy pillows. They can’t relax. They feel urges to lurch forward and take on situations and new people as if they were perfectly able. But they aren’t. They will get there, for sure. But they aren’t there. They need some naps and pats on the heads and love.

If I work this hard to be in your world, you could work hard, too, trying to understand my world. I am doing remarkably well, but you can’t see that. You see my as deficient. And crazy. And suspicious. And, probably, like I am an asshole. But if you knew what it is like to know my head is wrong, to feel like if I just slammed my head into a wall or something, maybe the wiring would somehow fix itself in all of the places necessary. I know my head is wrong. I can very truly feel it. Every moment that I do things you think are loony, I can feel it. I can feel my wrongness. But my wrongness feels so correct.

My brain is a constant battleground. An uncivil war wages on, always. The new parts fight the old, faulty parts for supremacy. The faulty parts have been here forever, they know the terrain, they are crafty. And the faulty parts have that unending belief they are right. They developed here. They will do anything for their motherland.


I am tired. I am tired of trying to be normal and have the thoughts of a normal girl. I am tired of fighting my own brain chemistry. I am tired of the things I know, the things my brain thinks I know, the things I think I know but are not true in reality. I am tired.
I am so tired. I am just so very tired. And so very alone. All alone.

It is so hard for me to blindly believe. Anything anyone says to me at any time could just be crap. How could I possibly take that risk again? Sure, I have again and again and again and again and again and again. And dozens of more agains. I am lousy with agains. Granted, most of the time, folks have been borne out to be relatively honest. Honest enough about important things that I felt safe and comfortable. But, like I said, at any time anyone can lie. And people lie to protect themselves from an infinite number of things. And once the lie is out there, the rest of the time is spent covering it up should it ever be conversation fodder. Honestly, my entire life was a lie at one time, for a long time. For decades. I was sexually anused in my own home and it was not acknowledged, it didn’t exist. The me who was molested didn’t exist. Plus, we had a highly codependent alcoholic family who had to always seem to not be a highly codependent alcoholic family. That takes work. So, not only did the molested me not exist, but also the alcoholic household member me did not exist. The real victim was the me who existed before everything happened. Before the abuse, before the decision to look like a normal, happy family was made. No wonder I haven’t a clue who I am in my core. Or maybe I do know, but the thousands of amalgams of the different mes get in my way of just being me. Any me. Any one me.

Lately, I have had to choose between my intuition and humans. I am much less inclined to believe humans, as it turns out. I was not always this way. In fact, I believed humans 100% of the time for as long as I can remember. Which isn’t as impressive as it sounds; I barely remember yesterday. But still, I know I used to believe the humans. Until I didn’t. And I still struggle. It is so easy to just make something up. To hide. To cover unseemly truths. To protect. To protect a name or a reputation or the image someone has of you. Or just for fun. Or to make yourself look better. Seem better. Feel better. Lying can just be better for you. Better. You may think there are things someone just doesn’t need to know. None of their business. And that is true. The tricky part comes if, later, it somehow does become their business but the lie is put there. What do you do then? ‘Fess up to the early, none-of-your-business lie, which opens you up to the now-I-know-you-and-can’t-walk-this-back lie without presenting the first lie? I don’t know.

I, myself, can be sneaky. It’s true. And I am very good at it. I can lie through omission to one person in my life at any given time. And I have. And I will again. But this is someone from the first paragraph, so the psychology of this ability of mine isn’t readily accessible to me, and I will need the help of a trained professional to suss out what this means. I like to think I am honest. I am absolutely honest most of the time, as I am filterly-challenged. I tend to just say what I think right then and there, when and where I happen to be, no matter with whom I am speaking. No matter whom I am talking with. I just say stuff. Which, may seem honest. But, saying shit off the top of my head without considering all the angles or dimensions of the subject doesn’t always end up with truth. Just a hasty first impression. I know there are things in my life that I don’t tell people under the none-of-their-business clause of living life. But I believe that these things are the business of no one but me. And there are things I will tell certain people but not others. And there is an occasional lapse of memory that may make me recall something in a better light than was there at the time. Like grades on exams or somesuch. But I don’t think faulty recall is a bad thing. It happens. I think it is harmless.

All that really matters to me about lying is the intent. Intent to deceive because harm is being caused is bad, bad. Protecting someone from something that really doesn’t need to be involved, not so much. A lie made in a spur of the moment to not complicate things later is a pussy lie, but one that can easily be fixed. Not really bad. Just lame. I don’t know. I don’t think lying is always bad. It can be necessary, helpful. And of course, it can destroy someone’s sense of safety, possibly forever. It can give, it can steal. Lying certainly tells us things about ourselves, on both sides of it. We learn where we are weak, where we are mean, where we are cowardly, where we make mistakes, where we are strong, decisive, disconnected, confused. We are all in progress. All of our mes. We all try. We all fail. We all try again. We lie. We are lied to. How can we know? Is it worth blindly trusting? Is it worth a second chance? I guess I have to take the chance to be alive. And I do believe in second chances. For all of us. For all of the mes everywhere.

My most vivid memories of being a child consist of me, balled up on my bed, sobbing with my guts, while the words “No one understands me,” scrolling, scrolling through my brain. The only notable difference in any of the memories is the color of the gingham-checked bedspreads I always had– the ones with the lace runners sewn down the edges of where the spread falls over the sides of the bed. I suppose my internal dialogue has always just been true, and rather a remarkable show of self-knowledge for such a young child. I am not a child now, and yet this is still my story.

Now, as the adult-child amalgam I have become, I know why this is just true. Nothing about my life as a child, or now as the adulter me, is very relatable. How could anyone understand the powerful combination of me, growing up with my own father licking my tiny, toddler vagina, jerking off on me, and I don’t know what else, and the single mother of an autistic boy me, who oftentimes doesn’t have enough left to give to another after an ordinary day. Both very specific and difficult paths to walk, and added together, a strange mixture of vulnerability, hopeful pride, fear, and uncertainty.

I find that being me is eternally exhausting. Trying to soften those self-defense mechanisms that helped me survive my childhood while facing new day after new day of blending my own fledgling happiness with my son’s constant needs and wants is daunting. Having an autistic child is a weird world of balancing his need of micromanaging and his need for autonomy in an overwhelming world. I have worked smart his whole life to make society fit around him, to show people that while autism is different, it isn’t scary. Autism just is. And, honestly, I hope I have demonstrated to the people that we all are different and none of us are scary. We just are. This is part of my everyday life, and it takes brain energy and emotional energy. I am functioning with a rather serious deficit of both, resulting in my jaggedy edges and some-encompassing fear of everything skewing my perceptions and robbing me of feeling safe and peaceful. Most days, I am so tensed up that my neck is barely visible and I am on guard against anything, all things.

Sometimes, I check out of whole conversations with people. I snap on my autopilot, seamlessly. The results of this trick vary. Turns out, my autopilot is manned by the parts inside of me that always tried to protect me from abuse. My pilots are judgement all, very. My pilots have seen and felt the worst possible betrayal, the most heinous acts wrought upon a child, upon me. They try to keep everyone out because how could they know who to trust? They could not trust my own father, so, of course, everyone is suspect.

The pilots don’t have any basis for understanding what a healthy relationship looks like, what it is, how it works. They don’t know anything about intimacy. They have little patience for hearing stories of regular, normal problems. After all, once you have been in hell, everything else is New Hampshire on a sunny day. And I get that. The defense mechs were totally awesome and entirely helpful for many, many years. I did survive the thing and do extremely well at school, I believe I faked normalcy for quite a while. And then the pilots and their mechs were drowned in alcohol for a decade, so it wasn’t a problem then, so to speak. I believe after sobriety came to me the trouble started. Sobriety is hard, as it turns out. feelings emerge. Actual, human feelings. They are everywhere, these human feelings. Flailing and wailing to be heard and felt.

I dislike the word unspeakable. I have been unspeakably defiled, abused, mistreated, demoralized, fucked up. But it must be spoken. I must speak of that which is unspeakable. I can’t think of another way to exorcize my demonage. I must find words for that which has no possible descriptors. Or at least try. Suffering with the unspeakable takes away my power. I need my power. I need to have some power. For possibly the first time in my life. I was strong to have borne the damages, to have survived, but I am not being strong now. I will be strong to overcome. When I overcome.

I never feel safe. Not even when I am home alone. Perhaps even less so then. I feel like I am at high alert. That danger is imminent. Life or death stuff. I mean, really, when I was a small, small, tiny child, I did die, in a very real way. Buried alive. And I didn’t have the tools then. Nor do I now. I feel like I have to cobble together some sort of strategic weaponry to protect myself. To fight back. To dig myself from this grave of fear, supreme anxiety, these heightened senses. Maybe I need an additional sense. A sixth. Or a hatchet. Or coping skills. No, not coping skills. I can and do cope. I muddle through. I white-knuckle my way through every minute of every day.

I don’t know how to get out. And I can’t stay in. I was doing well for a while after therapy. But, I swear, there is something about this time of year that always worsens everything.

There are times when I do feel safe, I think. When I am with Rob, when he is home or we are out doing stuff. Maybe because I am the protector. I am the provider, of comfort, of strength, of know-how. I am his guide. I get that I could become those things for myself. I believe that is possible. Probably, others of us are in fact in charge of their own lives. They seem to be. Out there in the world, accomplishing, contributing, thriving. Not living inside the grave of terror.

My son. He laughs through 75% of his days. He finds the joy, he feels the joy. It has never occurred to him that he isn’t entirely worthy of joy. He goes after joy. He grabs the joy, for himself. He deserves it, he wants it, he gets it. I admire him so much. He is never afraid. He is he.

And I am I. And I don’t have even the beginnings of an idea of what the fuck that means. I was never able to develop as me. I have no memory of some former glory. Of a time I was grateful for who I am. It’s not enough that I am funny. That on a good day I can string together some decent sentences or create photo art. That I make people laugh, lighten their loads, wear cute outfits. I can name a hundred good things about me, but I do not internally feel any of them. Epidermal goodness.

How is it I have lived 43 years as an unperson? I suppose that can’t be helped now. The other night, as I was giving in to that fitful sleep, I directed my thinking from the past doesn’t matter; what matters is now and from now on. But that didn’t feel right. I realized: what matters is now. Now. Only now. How do I separate who I am because of my past from just plain old who I am right now? Because, who am I right now? I can sort out and identify those parts- the funny, the cute, the genius, the nurturing mom, so on, so forth. But I cannot make a whole from the sum of my parts. How do I do that?

If I could just know, know to my bones, know in my flesh, my innards, my brain, my heart, my toes. If I could just fucking know I am worthy. That I am safe. I just want to be worthy enough to feel safe. I want to experience minutes at a time where my heart isn’t racing, where I am not poised to defend my life. I want to sleep without the dreams. Wake without the flashbacks. Wipe it all off. The grave dirt. The fear rubble. The terror particulates.

All I really know is that this must not be unspeakable. And however I go about the knowing of me, I must allow the goodness to permeate my human outer coating. I want to feel what I know. And say it. And just fucking say it.

When you leave me here all alone, unprotected, unaccounted for, unmissed, dismissed, tossed aside, chucked, all loose ends and flailing heartstrings, I begin to forget how to breathe. I forget how to breathe, how to make a fist, how to stop my heart pounding the dizziness into my head. I forget that I am here, that I exist, that I am important, that I have a quality about that many people find pleasing. That there is pleasure. I forget how to fold the washed clothes and put them in those drawers. I forget to eat the bits of low-carb, low-cal crackers that I sprinkle just a hint of shreddy cheese on, just enough to cover the cracker edge to edge. I forget that there are people outside, living, doing things, learning, growing, grumping at poor drivers, feeling the warm autumn sun shoot straight into their hair. I forget to shower. I forget I am pretty and am often presentable enough to be one outside, finding the joy in the feelings of things learned and sunshine and poor drivers.

I forget I have bones in my body. I feel like a damp old scrap of one of my Polly Flinders fancy dress my mother turned into a dust rag. The dampness is the lemony-freshness of Pledge which gathered the particles of dead skin and hair bits into the pores of the poly-cotton blend of the frilly plaid dress-skirt. While the citrus smell cheers me a bit, putting me in the mind of never contracting scurvy, I am still a limp, wet dress sleeve, crusted with pieces of flaked-off mauve nail polish.

I wish I had my bones back. I feel like I remember that I liked them. I recall nibbling at the cheesy crackers, finding the place where the socks go to rest, all snuggly enfolded with their perfect partner. I haven’t always been misplaced. Ignored. Un-shone-upon. I have felt the glow of you near me. I saw you slightly nodding a smidge of approval in my direction.

Deep down in my soul are deep dark secrets. I would tell them, but I wouldn’t be believed. Or validated. So the secrets grow, with mold and moss, until the dankness odorates my very soul. I am allergic to basements. My deep down dark dank basement full of secrets.

Tangled in the moss are my dreams and hopes and wishes and wants. My real me. A closet full of beautiful (in that so-ugly-they-can’t-help but-be beautiful) shoes. And special pens. And a hat for every occasion. And my one, true love. And my little house by the creek that smells like home and macaroni and cheese sprinkled with pepper. Endless colors of bold, but not neon, nail polish. Hairbrushes. Ribbons and bows. Delicate gloves. Fancy topcoats. And green green grass with no weeds. The sun. An iPhone. My Honda Fit, glossy with wax. A fountain of Crystal Light Pomegranate Cherry that will never stain any of my clothes or topcoats. Wild birds and wildflowers. Cameras, everywhere. And laptops, as far as the eye can see, all with brand-new, authorized versions of Photoshop. Soft trinkling fountains, little frogs. Ivy-covered bricks from my grandpa’s cellar. A pink law mower. A pink kayak. A pink Swatch watch. And socks!

Sometimes, even though touching wet, stinky moss totally grosses me out, I glump some of it off of the secrets and fling it out into the woods next-door, where the slithery snakes and mosquitoes live. I get the willies, for sure, but the willies don’t last as long as they used to last.

Sometimes, I take reprieve by shutting the basement door. It takes all of my strength to shut that door, but I can breathe and be and feel things then, when it is shut. But sometimes the door unshuts itself, when the secrets gurgle and percolate and scream out to be heard.

They want to be heard right now. They are extra dark and dank and moldy and mossy. I can barely see the nail polish. I am sneezy and my eyes want to close. To sleep, I think. To get away from my internal, infernal basement. I am so tired. Shut, unshut. Wishes hopes glumpy moss slithery snakes house by the creek evil goodness.

Mosquitoes. Hairbrushes.