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erikaThe problem with being both reasonably intelligent and introspective is that inevitably over-reactions become apparent when after a few minutes, we are seized with an overwhelming regret.
Well, yeah, no, I don't think I regret all of my smart mouth. The woman who turned to me to start off a discussion of cultural sensitivity and earnestly informed me, the only minority in the small group, that she doesn't understand why they harp on it because she doesn't see color——I don't regret what I said to her.
Neither do I regret my response to the one person who asked why I was walking during every break and yet doing it so slowly, and I informed her that my doctor believes I have fibromyalgia. So she says, "well, didn't doctors make that up in the '90s to sell more drugs?" I could've inquired about whether she meant the problems with neurontin marketing, but I decided to go to a deeper level and so I replied: "If you mean the 19th century, 30 years before the invention of penicillin, when fibromyalgia was first described in medical literature and named... then yes."
And yet... I regret so many things anyway. Forget esprit de l'escalier, how many times have I wished for a rewind button for all the quick and cutting remarks, all the angry bullshit I edgily spew. My bad treatment at the hands of a few cannot make up for how I treat my nearest and dearest, but when I'm repeatedly dismissed by acquaintances, doctors, family, and even those I sometimes consider friends—regardless of whether it's out of ignorance—I assume, oh, here comes another invalidation.
On some level, too, I believe it. And that shames me, because of all the things I should be.
If only I could explain how deeply shame cuts me, for I have so much regret that I fear it will swallow me whole, like Jonah's whale.
And there in regret's stomach, permanently in a state of indigestion, I will wallow, unable to escape. Each moment would bring to mind an experience I'd rather forget, every inhale an admission of pain and every exhale bringing to life a sorrow yet unborn.
(I think a sarlacc would digest me sooner than this soup of sorrow, shame, and regret.)
I don't understand, for one thing, why I still love and respect my parents when Josh very aptly (and angrily) described them as the system behind the symptom (the symptom being Voldemort's abuse).
Yet how is it even possible to say that 15 years of abuse is just a symptom, like the repercussions don't reverberate through every part of me, jarring and unwelcome, like there must be some cure or panacea, like it is not the worst thing I can imagine doing on a regular basis to treat myself as a person of worth?
(Sometimes I reject that idea. Generally, I do not.)
I measure myself out in cups of acid recriminations, etching the obligations I fail to fulfil, the appointments I miss, the tasks I neglect, the errands unrun, the chores undone. I pour the acid into my soul, so that the hole in the heart of me doesn't get any bright ideas about scarring over.
This, I believe, is what V did to me. And I cannot easily imagine that something anyone else has done could be worse. But... what if it is, and I've done myself a grave disserve in attempting to heal the wrong "wrong", as it were? If, when I meant to seek sanctuary, I have unwittingly and unknowingly slid further down, down into the deepest belly of the beast?
I do not know this yet. I'm not sure if I want to find out.
How cruel it was, I think, that the world made me so perceptive yet keeps me in this cage.
And so it's not that I blame anyone for treating me badly or leaving me, it's just that I so desperately wish I could leave me too.
And if I try to combat that, then I can only ask: Who would I be without this foundation of self-hatred? How could I be?
Thinking about all of this family stuff makes me want to climb a tree. I think I spent half my summers as a child up one.
I went into the front yard to see if there was a tree I could climb, but all I saw was a storm, blowing in fast.
It starts with clouds that are just a touch too light as of yet to drop their cargo, ominous darker greys in the distance, and cold winds making the branches of the enormous trees around me jump and shiver. Wilted leaves lose the last of their dying grasp as I sit here writing this, falling on my notebook; I've brushed off five while writing this last paragraph.
I get to my feet, gingerly, making sure I have a solid center of gravity to fold the chair I'm sitting in so it doesn't get rained on. As I move, pain flares and ebbs, so at different times I feel the aches in my knees, in my calves, in my neck, in my lower back, in my forearms. I walk slowly as I carry the chair back to the porch, because I'm so very, very tired.
Yes, it's July here, and summer, but that doesn't stop the leaves, dropping off their branches as if they already know they cannot handle the coming storm; there's always a few dead ones, all wilted, ineffectual and shrivelling, pathetic dead weight.
Well, yeah, no, I don't think I regret all of my smart mouth. The woman who turned to me to start off a discussion of cultural sensitivity and earnestly informed me, the only minority in the small group, that she doesn't understand why they harp on it because she doesn't see color——I don't regret what I said to her.
Neither do I regret my response to the one person who asked why I was walking during every break and yet doing it so slowly, and I informed her that my doctor believes I have fibromyalgia. So she says, "well, didn't doctors make that up in the '90s to sell more drugs?" I could've inquired about whether she meant the problems with neurontin marketing, but I decided to go to a deeper level and so I replied: "If you mean the 19th century, 30 years before the invention of penicillin, when fibromyalgia was first described in medical literature and named... then yes."
And yet... I regret so many things anyway. Forget esprit de l'escalier, how many times have I wished for a rewind button for all the quick and cutting remarks, all the angry bullshit I edgily spew. My bad treatment at the hands of a few cannot make up for how I treat my nearest and dearest, but when I'm repeatedly dismissed by acquaintances, doctors, family, and even those I sometimes consider friends—regardless of whether it's out of ignorance—I assume, oh, here comes another invalidation.
On some level, too, I believe it. And that shames me, because of all the things I should be.
If only I could explain how deeply shame cuts me, for I have so much regret that I fear it will swallow me whole, like Jonah's whale.
And there in regret's stomach, permanently in a state of indigestion, I will wallow, unable to escape. Each moment would bring to mind an experience I'd rather forget, every inhale an admission of pain and every exhale bringing to life a sorrow yet unborn.
(I think a sarlacc would digest me sooner than this soup of sorrow, shame, and regret.)
I don't understand, for one thing, why I still love and respect my parents when Josh very aptly (and angrily) described them as the system behind the symptom (the symptom being Voldemort's abuse).
Yet how is it even possible to say that 15 years of abuse is just a symptom, like the repercussions don't reverberate through every part of me, jarring and unwelcome, like there must be some cure or panacea, like it is not the worst thing I can imagine doing on a regular basis to treat myself as a person of worth?
(Sometimes I reject that idea. Generally, I do not.)
I measure myself out in cups of acid recriminations, etching the obligations I fail to fulfil, the appointments I miss, the tasks I neglect, the errands unrun, the chores undone. I pour the acid into my soul, so that the hole in the heart of me doesn't get any bright ideas about scarring over.
This, I believe, is what V did to me. And I cannot easily imagine that something anyone else has done could be worse. But... what if it is, and I've done myself a grave disserve in attempting to heal the wrong "wrong", as it were? If, when I meant to seek sanctuary, I have unwittingly and unknowingly slid further down, down into the deepest belly of the beast?
I do not know this yet. I'm not sure if I want to find out.
How cruel it was, I think, that the world made me so perceptive yet keeps me in this cage.
And so it's not that I blame anyone for treating me badly or leaving me, it's just that I so desperately wish I could leave me too.
And if I try to combat that, then I can only ask: Who would I be without this foundation of self-hatred? How could I be?
Thinking about all of this family stuff makes me want to climb a tree. I think I spent half my summers as a child up one.
I went into the front yard to see if there was a tree I could climb, but all I saw was a storm, blowing in fast.
It starts with clouds that are just a touch too light as of yet to drop their cargo, ominous darker greys in the distance, and cold winds making the branches of the enormous trees around me jump and shiver. Wilted leaves lose the last of their dying grasp as I sit here writing this, falling on my notebook; I've brushed off five while writing this last paragraph.
I get to my feet, gingerly, making sure I have a solid center of gravity to fold the chair I'm sitting in so it doesn't get rained on. As I move, pain flares and ebbs, so at different times I feel the aches in my knees, in my calves, in my neck, in my lower back, in my forearms. I walk slowly as I carry the chair back to the porch, because I'm so very, very tired.
Yes, it's July here, and summer, but that doesn't stop the leaves, dropping off their branches as if they already know they cannot handle the coming storm; there's always a few dead ones, all wilted, ineffectual and shrivelling, pathetic dead weight.
no subject
on Monday, August 12th, 2013 05:58 pm (UTC)When I re-read this, I think, you know, the trees are alive. They're not just hanging on, they're THRIVING, and they don't need those leaves anymore. How silly of me, to think of myself as a leaf... I am a tree.