who I really am

People think I'm this nice person.
Bullshit.
My long-time friend sent me a Christmas card and I threw it in the trash, unopened.
Last year while my mind was coming apart, he would call me...and this was bad.  By the time I'd stopped shaking from the phonecall he'd hung up.  If I did not take his call, he'd bloody call over and over and over.
Several times I nearly decided to throw my phone onto the concrete and smash it.
...Then he took it as a sign of disrespect that I never called him...
I asked if I could email him...I can handle emails better.  But he doesn't like emails, no, it's gotta be these little nerve-rattling phonecalls in which he is no longer able to understand how bad I feel because he's on antipsychotics and positive thinking, and I'm feeling like I'd rather be dead all the time...
So he insists that I call him. 

I can't.  I just can't.  I'm fucking going crazy.  He can't understand how crazy I am going.  He takes it as disrespect. No.  It's that I was so very horribly off that I had NOTHING TO GIVE ANYONE.  I was struggling for my life.
He couldn't get that.  He didn't get that.  And now I don't want him for a friend anymore.
I'm an asshole. That's who I am.


....I fucking hate the holidays.   There's never any way to escape some reminder of someone I failed.

Shine

We are such fragile things
Butterflies that dance for a season
On swiftly-fading wings,
Bright fleeting flowers that bloom in the spring,
Leaves that redden to fire and fall.
The wind is ever-blowing for us all.

Yet the light blesses.

A moment ago, I was a child and laughing...
Now my heart is broken open to the wind...
I thought my love would last a lifetime!
But it sickened and came to an end.

All my dreams fell down crashing.
I am left alone and bereft...

Yet the light blessed.
When once your heart sang to mine.
And it shone in your lovely eyes,
Like the tears that now glisten in mine...
I could see it and watch how it shined!
Oh yes, oh yes, it blessed.

Farewell, my once-beloved stranger...
In the end, it shall be no matter...
Time's winds shall roll my bones to ashes,
My tough old heart will still its beating...
For I am only human, frail and fleeting...
I too shall go to ripen the grasses.
We will lie together in earth's green splendor
Never weeping...
And still the light will bless...

Copyright 2012 WB

Charlie...

Charlie was a friend of my brother's.  He was in and out of our house a lot at one point.
He was 14, with a big brain and a big mouth...and parents who doubtlessly beat him up...I think his mom may have brought boyfriends around who abused him sexually.

I once told him that if he never needed to talk about anything, I'd listen...I wanted to "adopt" him in an emotional sense.  He really didn't seem to have anybody, and I knew he was living in chaos.
I kept hearing about how he was getting wilder and wilder...getting into harder drugs.
Then I heard he'd been present at a murder, that this had somehow earned him a trip to prison.
I found out today that he'd hung himself. Just released from prison, 19, killed himself.
So random...
Some of us make it out alive and able to heal.  Some of us don't make it out of our soul-destroying families...
I'm just so very sad for that young man... I wish there was something I could have done to stop this.

she's angry

I asked her to move her computer into her bedroom...mine will be going into my bedroom this week.  Was too tired to do it for a while.

​ I heard her on the phone talking about how I not only did something, I asked her to move her computer into her room...Yeah, she was shouting at her new phone...and I started shaking like I have done every time she shouts for over a year now.  She said she was gonna do it anyway...

Why should I be terrified and hiding in my own home? 

But I am, because she triggers me. She can't afford to move out yet...and I'm going to move my computer and coffeepot into my bedroom.
Seeing her fills me with sadness and hurt.

Pretzels, a crosspost

I asked for a divorce.
I have a clear-cut indication I can't be happy. The emotional stuff might be fixed with a TON of work...the profound sexual mismatch, no, not in a million years of trying.

We're both hurting each other, bending ourselves into pretzels trying to make this work. I hurt, I hurt tons...
A friend of mine said..."You just need to be loved." I do. With her I have to do things *just right* to get crumbs of affection, crumbs of sex, I almost always feel lonely, I almost always feel not good enough.
I could not take it any more.

Last year I went through a serious amount of childhood abuse trauma coming back to me...so I'm used to my brain turning into a potato. I'm in the spud-zone again...
...Funny I keep coming up with such starchy metaphors.

I'm just going to take it easy this week and procrastinate my butt off, no apologies for this, I can barely handle work and house stuff and whatnot...well, I might get my motorbike to the shop this week (the poor thing!)

I'm just gonna make art and breathe and swap bedrooms...
Oh...I should mention divorce is gonna be really legally fun, and costly-not in ways I can talk about.

Also, she's broke right now...so I'm not making her get out. I don't hate her. I feel guilty enough about abandoning her. We've been living in my mom's old trailer-house, I am fine with sharing the rent-free goodness and continuing to split the bills. I'm going to buy her an air-conditioner for her bedroom, then we're good to go.

Jewish Christmas

My wife was horribly depressed this weekend, so was I...She has managed to hurt me so much, and I spent an hour or so crying in her arms.
I was thinking about how much I would miss our Christmas tradition...Go to a Chinese place...and all the memories we've made together, good and bad.  There's been heartbreak, but there's been a lot of goodness too. 
I am so sad...I wonder if this is because I'm detaching...
She feels...stunned.  I have told her this stuff over and over and over.  She just failed to compute until now...how much she was hurting me.
She said "Everything I thought I knew is wrong."
She feels so guilty.  I feel guilty for not stopping this sooner.
I'm not sure we can repair this.  We are going to try.

This is so hard

Okay...sorry I have not been updating...

It seems I have been staying with my wife, in part, because I was stuffing the feelings of hurt, anger, and sadness that her behavior has given me. She's almost certainly Asperger's...so all of this was out of epic cluelessness on her part.
Also failure on my part to communicate powerfully enough for her to receive the message.

The rage broke like a tsunami.

I was so outraged and upset to finally realize that her negativity towards what I did has been eating away my self-esteem. I had told her to stop it, over and over and over. She'd never been able to hear that she was HURTING me.

Too, she was shouting at me for talking to her when she wasn't ready...no matter that I would sit there in physical pain...a deep ache in my chest of loneliness... She didn't understand that by simply doing her morning routine while I sat there and waited, and waited and waited for her to talk to me, quietly, so I would not make her shout at me...was making me feel so unwanted, like a gods-damn nuisance, like my needs were just too much. And the sex is...never enough, never often enough. The talking and cuddling is never enough.

I pointed out a while back that she hugged the cat more than me...She started hugging me more...a little. Right now I feel like...I want out.
That makes me feel so shitty, because she really loves me, I love her. And she's trying to get better.

I feel so sad and lost.

Ominous sign

I keep imagining what sort of bed I'd like to get...for myself.  I consider the new bed her bed, as her mom bought it for us...
I wonder if I want to build my own futon frame or have a regular mattress...I think the regular mattress, futons get moldy in our super-humid climate.
But I still want to build a bed to my own specs, so as to have underbed storage of all my stuff.

...I was so in love with her once.
Gods, this is sad.
...And no, nothing's certain yet.
I just note that I'm starting to want my own room.

I am NOT ok!

I was really distressed today, and I thought I had lost my wallet. (It was in the car)...But for some reason I was dissociated enough that I thought I had it with me and all sorts of goodness followed-like me running around the counseling center like a maniac looking for my wallet.

This was after Sunday...and it was sort of a freakout continuation.
I got massively triggered on Sunday-agoraphobia combined with some guy hectoring his toddler over something asinine in the paleontology exhibit. His kid said "I dropped it," I guess it was gum and the guy said "No, you spit it on the floor, I saw you, I saw you..." Like the kid had committed some sort of horrible offense.
I just wanted to run over to the guy and say "For Chrissake just tell him to pick it up and throw it away!"

I was already getting overloaded-freaking out...and that little act of one parent browbeating their kid bumped me into overload territory.
I said "I gotta get out of here." to my wife and she said "Well the only way is to go to the end," She was wrong by the way, I think there was an exit right by me but I was too distressed to realize it, I was in a dark dream and having to struggle mightily not to curl up under a bench.
Then she said "Just wait until I get a couple of pictures."
AAAGH!
But she's not helpful, she never has been helpful, her being there generally makes me feel worse because she wanders off like a giant freakin' toddler and it's one more goddamn thing I have to worry about because if I'm not there she'll be like all "WHERE DID YOU GO??? I was worried about you!"

So in couples' counseling today I worked out a thing wherein I go to a predetermined safe spot and she just lets me go instead of doing her non-helpful thing that she usually does, after the reality that I am now freaking out penetrates her preoccupation with things : "WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO YOU NEED???" And her freaking out and hitting me with a barrage of questions just makes me freak harder.

I feel so alone. Apparently that's a typical feeling of people married to Asperger's people...she may or may not be Asperger's but she acts like she is.

My therapist thinks I just want to divorce her because I'm triggered. There's a good chance she's right.
Plus there's the attachment issues...I don't feel happily attached to anyone.

Anyway, I had a shitty session with my individual therapist...at the end of which I got up shaking, after I had stopped in session (because I was curled up into fetal position on the couch) and she said "You don't have to shake, you're ok," because I was shaking, and I snapped back "NO I'M NOT OK!"

I really wasn't, I thought I'd lost my wallet at that point, and I definitely was losing my marbles and I was shaking because I would have had to work hard at not shaking and she does not get that.
Yeah I can stop it and try to act like I'm ok, because I got that bloody well beat into me as a child.
It takes every bit of energy I have to stop it when I feel that shitty.
So, goddamn it, if I wanna shake I WILL. I know one way to bring myself down that will work, and that's to cut so if she wants me to pull out the razor she can tell me to stop shaking and act ok.

I am not, not, not, not ok right now.

A reposted story

This is what happened when I was bored at work today, and wrote something to amuse myself:

Chinese Toaster

By: Me

Written on August 1st, 2012

I take the bread from the plastic bag. Two neat slices.
I lay them on a clean plate, next to the jar of natural peanut butter, and the sensuous gleam of the raspberry fruit spread, so dark and inviting.

"You know you want it, don't you?"  I call to the toaster.
She's a standard, cheap little two-slot whore from China, bought at Walmart.

She's sitting there, unplugged, quiet, huddled behind the pill bottles.  Behind the blender, like I can't see her untidy whiteness back there, her fat little curves that say "Use me!" even as she huddles.  Submissive  little Chinese slut of a toaster!

Teasingly, I trace her cord out of the others...and plug her in.
"You want this bread, don't you, in your dirty slots, don't you?"
I rattle her entire body a bit.  Oh yes, I know her slots are dirty with burnt crumbs, the wench...Sometimes she's so filthy I just open her bottom up and shake her over the sink!

Into each slot, I thrust my throbbing bread.
"Take that! You always take it Whole Wheat, don't you?"  You even like extra fiber!"
She submits, I see the gleam from her stained white metal, and know so well what she wants.
Her slots, filled with my bread.

Once, I depress her button, and inside each slot, wires start to glow red.  Like a cherry.   It's electric.
Her slots are heating only for me.
Even so, I know, she'd heat for anyone, anyone at all.  But I own her, heart, soul, and circuitry.

Contemptuously, I ignore her turned-on state, and prepare my coffee...She gets so hot, so hot from being treated like nothing but an object...My cheap little Chinese toaster...Her white flanks shine seductively at me, but I deny her the touch.

I can see, and smell the lovely aroma of her turned-on state, the crumbs in her depths creating a smoky smell...oh, I knows she likes this so much, know she waits for me to turn her on, heat her up, and double-penetrate her in both her slots at once.
As I reach for a cup, there's a sudden release, and she's finished, my toast done to a turn.

I remove each gently crisp and lightly caramelized slice from her slots that yearn silently up at me...saying "Do it again."
But no, I have to mind my calories.

...There she sits on the counter, as always, awaiting my pleasure.

Narrative

Yesterday I said to someone, who was failing to get my point online, and acting douchy...I said our selves are a construct. A narrative we tell ourselves. 

You see...

On LSD over 10 years ago.. I saw myself as a blue sphere trapped in a hard matrix. Just a blue orb. That's it.

A narrative we tell ourselves.

It's not what we are.

And then I said to myself...”Holy shit.”

I watched this talk Thandie Newton gave, someone linked it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzKBGtf0i0M

And I guess those two pieces were in my mind.  But wanting to get this guy to realize what I was saying was going over his head...I made a connection.

Everything is a story I tell myself?

That sounds...right, but...really???

So, since I've been...obsessively trying to get over my crap childhood...I thought...What import is the abuse? 

Well...it's a part of the narrative that is hidden. 

I respond to that interior programming unconsciously, because it's unconscious.  It means I'm not in control of the narrative. Instead of me being in charge of that narrative, I allow my angry, abusive parents of 30 years ago to steer.

What I've been trying to do is take over my own narrative. 

Create a self that is free

And what import are my alters? the parts of me that were spalled under stress? 

The kids all have their OWN narrative about how the world works, and who they are.

It's my job as host to put their narratives in a broader perspective for them...I get them to rewrite their own narratives.

........

Easier said than done, no?

Insight, what a trip it is.

Marriage stuff

So...neither of us have been making the other happy...

This weekend I need to come up with concrete things I need from her.
The first specific action...I told her I wanted a phone call from her every day at 830 PM on weekdays.  Just to say hi.  We're both at work at 830 PM, you see...

I know she doesn't like talking on the phone.
I decided I don't care.  That may seem harsh...  but since I stopped denying how incredibly lonely I was in this marriage...The feelings of grief and sadness are just washing over me.

...Let's see.  I want to be sexual...weekly, at least...more if/when it becomes logistically possible.
I want both of us to be happy having sex...which probably means doing it her way every time...this will be emotionally triggery for me, but it's really important getting over it.
I want her to keep going until I beg her to stop, though...I usually feel like I'm being selfish after the fifth orgasm or so and tell her she can stop...I'm gonna just buy her a wrist brace.

...I want hugs at least twice a day every  day...Last night I jokingly pointed out something true...she hugs one of the cats (her old lady cat) twice a day...but I wasn't getting hugged twice a day.

I want her to talk to me every day, even if it's just a phone call.  There have been  weekdays in which I did not speak to her all week, because of the way our work schedules run.  Last year when I was getting repressed memories back of sexual stuff my dad did to me...My best friend talked me out of suicide, told me over and over I wasn't horrible, that I was wanted, that he'd miss me terribly.
Where was she? WHERE WAS SHE???
Why didn't I share with her???
In part because I think I stopped hoping she'd be there for me emotionally, in part because she never shared her feelings with me...in part because she finds long conversations to be really hard work and she gets overloaded...in part because what I did tell her she did not seem to be able to understand.
She doesn't.  She's not an incest survivor.  She's not good with emotions, even.  She cares and wants to help, yeah, but through this period... she did what she wants done when she is upset.
She left me alone.
I am finally feeling the pain of her not working harder to engage.  She just left me alone through what was the worst emotional pain in my life...and it went on for months...so it's not like it came and went...

....On Wednesday...I think I finally conveyed it to her in terms she got:
"Imagine losing a cat every day for a year."

I am feeling...grief and bafflement.
Why did she leave me alone when I was drowning in pain?  WHY???
I don't understand...Maybe I wasn't clear enough.
Maybe it was my fault for not asking loudly enough, I don't know...I don't know.
I was drowning,  I was drowning mostly without her...and I don't understand why.

Because I suck...

(In case any of you actually thought I was a nice person or easy to live with...I just wrote this to my wife)

Okay...
You told me you want to understand me.  It's not even clear what you want to understand. SO I will just throw stuff out about what I feel right now.

I've been in and am now in a tremendous amount of pain.  A lot of times I feel overwhelmed, exhausted...and profoundly alone.

At this point I try not to speak to you unless spoken to, because I never know if I'm going to get yelled at or not.  You're the one person I am almost always desperately craving the presence of, but I have to hold my tongue and keep silent until you speak.
When you don't speak to me it's almost as painful, but I know trying to get attention just gets me shouted at.
Yes, you sitting there and ignoring me caused me a great deal of hurt, once. I wanted to hit myself at times because you would not talk to me.   Now I'm accustomed to it.

A better way to communicate to me about saying “you're not stable enough to have a baby,” would have been...”I think you are not o.k. to have one right now, but let's revisit that in 3 months.”
I was sort of getting better because I knew I “had to.”  Because there was a baby on the way.
You said “You're not stable enough to have a baby,” I heard that more like “_______, you're stupid to think you'll EVER be stable enough to have a baby.”
I have been feeling a growing sense of despair that I'd worked on myself so much for nothing.

I'm still intensely triggered and freaking out over the sex the Sunday before last.
I've been hating myself since then, self-injuring since then, and the feelings of wanting to beat myself, of wanting to take skin off won't...bloody...stop.
I have an urge to take steel wool pads and abrade my genitals.
My body is a sewer. 
I'm disgusting, a human toilet.
How could anything anyone does with this carcass be beautiful?
Right now I think I'm disgusting and pathetic, and barely worth the bullet it would take to kill me.
I don't see you as needing me
...What do you need from me?  I never feel you need me.  I can't believe it.

Cutting is soothing, that was one thing I was trying to give up for the kid.  I'm not fighting it now.

 I hate myself for being angry at you, and usually feel I need to self-punish by hitting or cutting after getting you angry. I don't know how to express anger appropriately, so I either say nothing or explode. I often self-injure after I have made you angry, I feel extreme emotional turmoil until I am properly punished for making you angry.  Feeling anger at you is frightening.

I love you and admire you and fear you, you can destroy me.
I feel subservient to you, yet resent it.
You hurt me now by reminding me of how worthless I really am when you say something critical.
I love you but at the same time I'm fighting being terrified of you, because you are too close, and yet not close enough.

I doubt that helped.

something I posted elsewhere

My mom divorced my dad some time ago...My brother was six...
the repressed memories uncorked later...and I decided not to tell my brother so that my brother could have some vague excuse of an actual dad.

Trust me it's been a vague excuse.

But anyway, I did finally attempt to tell my brother...and he said that first, he really didn't want to know...but that he didn't really like or respect dad anyway. I replied...after thought "Ok....But you and ______ are trying to have kids.You need to know that if you have a girl don't leave her alone with him."

....Today, my mom called me to warn me my father was at the house so I would not stop by. Ok, cool.
So then she started rambling about my dad's dilapidated car, and I said, "Mom, I've got a giant grin on my face as I'm imagining myself stabbing him repeatedly. The thought of killing him makes me really happy. I would love to be able to kill him and am really, really looking forward to his death."

Mom kind of got off the phone after that...

Yanno, I really enjoy hating him sooo much..

Balanced on two wheels
I float down back roads at the
Speed of butterflies.

I went for a bicycle ride this afternoon, and I felt like I had such a luxury of time, since I did not have to go to work...so rather than pushing hard, I just tooled along, eyes wide...and it's so beautiful out here, so beautiful. Tall loblolly pines, everything green and beautiful...

I found something sad and fascinating-a flattened, dessicated coral snake.  People are afraid of them because they don't know that coral snakes have their fangs mounted in the back of their mouths, and those are small. Basically, as long as you don't pick them up, they can't really bite you.You'd only have to mind babies and the severely stupid around a coral snake, they are shy and hide from people anyway.

After that, I saw bones lying on the side of the road, sunbleached. It was a cat that failed to make it across the road, I eventually saw, looked like a half-grown kitten.  The skull was in excellent condition, so I brought it home to paint.  As I was searching for the rest of the remains, I could smell that deep sweet scent of loblollies, and the call of the crows disturbed by my presence.

The third leg of my regular circuit I ride past a number of grass farms.  I  find it not good that all our food here comes from California, and instead we grow giant lawns...but that's how it is.  There's also a cattle farm out there...A ranchlet, I guess you'd call it? It's a lovely property at any rate. There's a deep drainage ditch that runs alongside part of the road, and the white heron that always hangs out there...flew away from me as he always does. 

As I rode I decided to talk to the latest member of my DID "family," Miss Perfect.
Miss Perfect is seven, and she believes if we do everything perfect, mommy will love us.  Except we can't be perfect.  So she's been the one sending me messages like "I'm worthless, I need to die," that will just sort of float out of nowhere.
Well...the thing is, I'm 39...and I won't take orders from a maltreated and very hurt 7-year old. So now that her secret is out, she's lost her power to make me feel awful.  I don't think she's happy about that, not that she's generally been happy about anything.
 At the same time, she's seven. She thinks everything has to be perfect in order to be worth anything due to her mom's bullying and rampant perfectionism.  Mom was taking her frustrations at the suckiness of mom's life out on us, was having VERY unrealistic expectations of how well a small child could do housework.  Shawn, of course, my angry boy, resisted her(as he does everyone).
Miss Perfect is the part of me that desperately wanted mom to love us, not tell us things like "You disgust me, I can't stand to look at you, get out of my sight!"
Yes, my dad sexually abused me, but it seems my mom's share of the abuse was what really made me suicidal.

Wow, that's a sad thought.

So after telling Miss Perfect I loved her and mentally hugged her...I said to her "Isn't it beautiful out here?"
"Yeah." She replied.
"But none of it's perfect."
"No?....No. No it isn't"
"Yeah, hon, all this isn't perfect.  Maybe it's ok to be not-perfect."
"I guess..." giving me an impression of rolling eyes.

Right about then we came up on this one horse pasture...next to said pasture a mulberry tree grows...and the horses are so appreciative if I feed them the mulberry leaves.  The paint horse always nuzzles me.  I need to take those guys some carrots.

On the fourth leg of my trip I rode through a gas station's parking lot.  These two cars had stopped and a small number of older people were saying how-de-do's and catching up...I could feel the warmth and joy.

Then back home, feeling at peace. After a wonderful shower, I tried to get the kids to meditate with me...which just sort of ended up with me in an internal group hug and telling the kids "I love you, I love you."

Today is a good day.  I feel like I am/we are blossoming.

General update

How I have been doing lately:



Well, sports fans, as you know I've been decanting and processing memories of my dad sexually and physically abusing me.  Now it seems him doing that may have created...other people in my head?  Some sort of weird dissociative thingy, at any rate.

I have kids in my head.  We're talking.  They are talking to my therapist-through me-which is the weirdest feeling imaginable, besides the fact that I hallucinate all sorts of shadow shapes while it's happening.

My wife and I are...getting along better. I'm less jumpy again, so not so incredibly triggered by her yelling at the computer, or bellowing like a wounded ox when she drops something.

...Look my, erm, "loving" parents would start yelling and then hit me as punctuation of sorts, ok?  a raised voice is a direct trigger.



The sex thing bears mentioning.

She's put on a lot of weight.  I don't care.   She does care.

Or, well, I do care in the sense that I want her to be happy and healthy, but I still find her attractive.

So, because of that and because of the way I approach sex (not good for her, and yeah we've worked on that), one time when I was trying to get her turned on...she started crying.

I still feel...like some sort of creep at times, and I certainly still feel guilty.

We did try it the way she likes...which is to "share energy," and that has been...um...the first time we tried it I just sort of ended up howling and sobbing in her lap because of the grief and the loneliness of going through all these memories mostly without her.

Better the next time.

I do love her, I really do...and it's not like anyone would handle my level of weird terribly well.



My sinusitis seems to be getting a bit worse, I'm losing energy again.

Love and threat

Loved.

I am somehow now able to feel loved.



I know that doesn't seem like much?  But I never felt safe, secure or worthy of love.

I am loved by my wife, I am loved by my Squirrel.



I also find I like myself today.

I'm not perfect, not by a long shot.

But I'm not a bad person.





It's so peaceful not hating myself for once.

....

Squirrel did not tell me this before...I did not know he was being kept in the psych unit that held the very worst cases in his area.  It came up because there was yet another completed suicide on his unit.  Some poor fellow hung himself, and succeeded in doing severe brain damage before they found him dangling.

So the heart attack that did for him was probably a blessing after all.



Squirrel is getting somewhat less self-destructive, but he's self-injuring a lot.  At least at this point he has towels, tape and supplies.  Which is actually a happy thought; before the slicing was dry runs for offing himself, now he is prepared to put himself back together.



My feelings for him are very complicated, and very deep.

I'm glad my wife isn't jealous, if she was I'd be in one hell of a bind-abandon him when he needs me, or abandon her, which would break my heart.

She is so dear to me that she feels dangerous.  What I learned was "Those that love you hurt you, and everyone's a threat."



The fact that Squirrel is so dear to me too-well, that's dangerous...not because I'm going to leave her for him though.

It's dangerous for me because there's a good chance he'll die, either from suicide or his poor, beat-up old heart will give out and that will be that.  Damn, that will shatter me, no joke.

I grieve hard.

loneliness

I am just lonely.
This happens often.

Odds and endings...

I broke my wife's big wooden spoon last night.
My wife wanted $5 to replace her spoon, and I am not to beat myself up with her things.Again on that last.
I honestly thought it was mine. I couldn't sleep without hitting myself with it repeatedly, as well as whacking myself in the head with a phonebook.
As to why I hit myself...long story...

My wife bonds through us doing things together.
The thing is I'd just rather curl up around my agony at home then have to go out in public and try to act normal...well...then again, past the age of 4 when have I ever acted normal...hmm...
Rephrase that:
I act ok enough to not (a) be victimized, or (b) have emergency services called on me on the spot.

Being ambiguously gendered and kinda...Christopher-Walkenish?  helps with the former, and cutting only on the nonvisible body parts helps with the latter.
At any rate:
I emailed my wife regarding going out together and said it was like she'd told someone with two broken femurs they needed to learn ballroom dancing to save their marriage.
But then I emailed her again...and told her I relinquish control.

 She can compel me to do...whatever she wants in terms of bonding activities that please her, the only stipulation being that she not ask me whether I want to, I won't lie.
I don't want to do anything anymore, not even watch a movie, I try to focus and...*bloop* I get restless, I lose focus, the pain resurfaces and it all just seems bloody pointless.
But it will make her feel connected, so I have to.
 This voluntary giving-up of the power to say no terrifies the living fuck out of me, because she...has no clue how to  take me somewhere and not trigger me.
All she has to do is raise her voice in a vehicle, really, that's such a powerful trigger that I told her I want to start riding in the back of the pickup, and I really, really resent she won't let me ride in the back because it bothers her!
I'd rather she strapped me to the fucking hood like a trophy buck than shout at me.

But...I think I've gotten to the point where either I force myself or someone forces me to...I dunno, not be an animate corpse anymore.
If I were any less lively, they'd have to put me in the morgue at my job.

Speaking of which.
Speaking of which.

I really want to die.
And no, my wife's not holding me here.
I get the feeling she does not truly need me the way I need her or understand what I am going through, that's why.
 When I remembered the first time dad raped me over the summer and was just...this ragged, gaping wound inside...she was working the night shift, so when I got home, got down on the floor and was rocking, shrieking until my voice went out...or sometimes it was my cuppy-chair, but you get the point.
She didn't get it when I told her how bad it was, and really I didn't feel safe telling her how bad it was anyway...so she was really shocked when she saw what I was calling "a good cry."  Fetal position, age regression, screaming, shaking, rocking...that was every night for a couple of months this summer.

Squirrel still needs me.
He's still in a psych ward, still struggling. If I pull the trigger on myself I'm almost certainly doing so to him.
He's my anchor.
I'm what he has left...poor guy.
I told him I broke a wooden spoon on myself today, and he said "There's nothing I can say without being a hypocrite."
This last month he cut badly enough that, in his words, he was "leaking too much." So, having a needle and thread he handily sewed himself up again.
The psych people took away his needle and thread.
Guess they want him sutured by professionals then.
No, he's not doing so well either.
I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me, I teared up  That part is usual.

Hmm, think I need to curl up in the office chair.  Yeah, I'm putting on weight again, dammit. Fetal position in chair is becoming not so comfy.
I ought to force myself to bicycle when I go home tonight.  I really ought.

Today I saw the ospreys are back from wherever it is they winter.
I might go for a trespass down there, but that pair is too wary to let me get anywhere near close enough for my camera to take a good picture.
The willow tree is in bloom, and covered with bees. In about a month or so it will start putting out fuzz like the world's biggest dandelion.
The bird feeder I made last year has finally been discovered by a pair of cardinals. The feeder is literally leaning up against the window, and so the birds are right there.
The cats find this amazing
I am finding squashed little turtles on the road.  I keep thinking if I find a live one I might keep it-I'm pretty good with turtles...but then again, I already feed too many animals as it is.

I still need to get my motorcycle hauled to a shop and repaired.  Need to see about having that done, should see if I can schedule a wrecker on Friday or Saturday.

The hole weekend(s) (crosspost)

She tells me I jump all over her at the slightest thing.

She's right.
I feel like everything's some sort of challenge, some kind of attempt to dominate me.
I don't know why.

What I do know is that because she gets overwhelmed so easily, I feel constantly rejected by her.
She can't be touched unless she's prepared for it.
She can't be talked to easily without finding it "overwhelming."

I withdraw to protect myself pretty fast these days, I will admit.
She does not get very many chances to reject me before I reject her back.
At that point it hurts and angers me to even look at her, to be conscious and around her, because I am looking at the person whom I love, whom I crave attention from, and not getting it.

So I go to sleep.
Because I can't stand being available for her rejection.
This last weekend I went to sleep on Saturday evening, when she got flustered and shouted at me for telling her I was lonely and asking when she'd be ready to pay attention to me.
I had been waiting for an hour; my chest was beginning to hurt because I wanted to talk to her so d*mn bad.
So she got...well, not angry, but upset, and flustered, and said "Now you've upset me again! I have to start all over!"
This after I made a special effort to be calm and intellectual about stating my needs clearly and wanting a time she'd be available to meet those needs.
I said to myself "F*ck it!"
And went to bed.

She came in and woke me up after I was asleep...All I can remember her saying is "I'm reaching out to you here."
And I said "It's too late, I've already decided you don't get to reject me anymore today, I want you to leave me alone."

I pretty much did not stay out of bed for more that a couple of hours at a stretch until 2 pm Monday afternoon, when I had to get up and get ready for work.

I've had a month of weekends like this.

Asperger's vs PTSD episode 1

In the beginning...there was light. And it was on.
And it was on the porch.  At night.
It kept me from injuring myself in the dark when I walked up to the front door.
I saw that this was good.

Then my Aspie wife came along, and turned the d*mn thing out.

I kvetched mightily.
"There is clutter, wear, tear and much weariness of wood on the way to the front door," I proclaimed.
"Let the light be as a beacon to keep me from falling on my ass or stepping in the filth of many dogs who poop mightily all over the place."
And the woman was wroth, and she did spake" It's just annoying to leave a light on."
And I said "Nay, there must be a porch light. It is a safety issue."
And so there was much kvetching from the wife, who liked the dark just fine thank you very much.
And though she reluctantly agreed that the light must be left on...
There was much absentmindedness upon the person of the wife, such that she would turn the light off out of habit.

Many times did the turds cling to my shoes, and many times did I trip over things left randomly in the clutter-laden dark.
I complained, but she hardened her head and kept forgetting.
And I too hardened my head at her forgetting, for it made me most wroth.
Lo, I have removed the strike plate from over where the switches were, and have indeed concealed the switch from the eyes of men, beasts, and the aspie wife.
The switch is now in the on position and tucked carefully into the wall, with the strike plate screwed into place.

Let there be light.

Adventures in relating (crosspost)

Tonight we talked...mainly about ways we annoy each other, as we kept doing them.
But we did not argue.

She helped me look for my passport...I have no idea where it is, it was last seen in a manila envelope. Before she went to bed, she noted something:

E:"I am talking in a monotone to avoid triggering you."
HR: "Thanks."
E: "I'm surprised you don't find it kinda creepy."
HR "Gee, I don't.  I find it soothing."
E: "Well, I find it kinda creepy."
HR: "I'm trying not to laugh at you."
E: "I'm thinking of Steven Wright."

At this point we broke into Steven Wright jokes, then she went to bed.
I really do love her. Really really...
I just have to find a way to be happy with her, she with me, and all our heaping helping of weird.

Spam!

Biggest news...Friend Squirrel is in a very worrisome state. He's kicked heroin, but the aftereffects are damn near causing him to kill himself daily.  He's very ill and I may lose him.
I love him.
I love him perhaps a bit much for someone married.

This has caused me to look at my marriage and realize...holy hell, I really am not getting my needs met here.
I have to figure out how.
Oh, and we're kinda sure the wife has Asperger's...a mild case to be sure.  With my severe case of C-PTSD...ohboy.
Complicated.

Oh.  I have decided to sprog. Pop out a rugrat.  Create mini-me.  I am too old to put it off until my life is not going to hell.  Having a kid's a stupid idea.
It makes me feel ridiculously happy.

I've started a blog over at a big social-networking site (experienceproject.com) and have become shamefully addicted to being there.

So...I am going to crosspost.  I'M SPAMMING MYSELF! BWAHAHA!

BTW, I seem to be doing a lot better now.

weekend

This weekend was...not good.

The wife kept getting angry at me, whatever I said, on Saturday.

 By Sunday, she had me totally wigged out.

I just wanted away from her. ..I slept all this weekend because I could get away from her no other way.

I slept so much my butt was sore when I woke up.  And I binge-ate.

 I took a bunch of 5-htp to try and remain calm, and ended up taking too much...I got nauseous and very sleepy.

 

 I'm still reluctant to get around her.

I feel nervous, numb, sad and feel so very tired and helpless when I think about it.

I'm also thinking about hitting or cutting myself, because I can't get over the feeling I did something to deserve this...and at any rate, self-injury really will clear the cobwebs out like nobody's business.

She does this stuff and I just withdraw, shut down.

How I'm doing in brief.

Better.  My symptoms of depression and PTSD have very much decreased.
I'm feeling okay with myself. 
My bestie Squirrel, though...he made a suicide attempt that was not very well planned...and is now a guest of the NHS.  I cannot talk to him much in the Nut Hut and miss our daily online BS sessions.
My wife can't seem to clear her chest cold.
She at least has a nicer and fatter paycheck with which to pay the docs.
...I still have too many animals.

Why we keep bring it up-a reposted essay.

So…dragonofjapan said something: “Yes, you were abused, but what are you going to do about it right now?”
So I was thinking about that.
What a lot of abuse survivors do…appears like wallowing. In some cases, it may actually be wallowing…but for most of us…

What it is necessary to do seems counter-intuitive. In order to become a whole person, we have to examine the past in detail. We have to be heard by others. We have to have the feelings we could not allow while we were busy surviving a life-and-death situation. We usually have to fight programming that continually tells us we are worthless; that programming never seems to go away entirely in many cases.
To survive, we had to shut off our emotions, you see, and while that kept us from feeling precisely how abandoned and in danger we were at the time of the abuse…the emotions will remain shut off. In many cases, this leads to profound depression and suicidal thoughts. Too, there are specific brain changes associated with PTSD. Metabolic brain errors are induced by trauma.

( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091231153341.htm )


So to some degree, those of us who’ve had this kind of damage are never going to be what we could have been without it…and we have to come to a place of acceptance with that.

Our parents basically showed us by their actions, and in most case told us, that we were pretty worthless. Typically there was not a sane reward/punishment system, so we never knew what was going to get the crap knocked out of us. Learned helplessness ensued. We’ve been programmed from a young age that we can’t stop people who were supposed to love us…from hurting us so profoundly many of us want to die. So we have to disassemble…programming that was screamed or beaten or molested or raped into us, and furthermore, the programming was done while our brains were still growing.

I understand some people are able to get over the programming. I suspect I personally am always going to have the random nasty thoughts: you’ll never get that right, you’re worthless, stupid, you can’t do anything right, you’re disgusting, you should just kill yourself now and save everyone from the filth you are.
Fighting the thoughts is just something I have to keep doing.

We really need to hear, like a scratched CD, over and over and over, it was not your fault, you didn’t deserve that, that was crazy, who would do that to a child? Things like that, we really do need to hear them over and over…And I’m sure this looks ridiculous to the non-survivors…When you’re a child and the people you NEED to trust are putting your life at risk...the usual rationalization a small child comes up with is punishment.
“I am bad, this is why mommy whipped me with an electrical cord.” “I was bad, so daddy punched me in the mouth.”
We almost universally blame ourselves for what our out-of-control parents did.
Too, we associate love and trust with being tortured. Some of us seek out relationships that feel familiar. Some of us avoid relationships at all. Some of us are terrified by emotional closeness and do our best to run people off or run away from them. Those of us who have a lack of insight and a dearth of empathy, sadly, may be the ones who take the cycle on another generation.

We need to feel our feelings. We need to cry the tears and scream the outrage that could have gotten us killed. Don’t think it could not have happened in many of our cases. It’s not terrifically hard for someone who’s twice your size to hit you just a little too hard, or knock you into something and accidentally kill you. My dad’s sexual abuse gave me a bladder infection that put me in the hospital, so that sort of thing can happen too-kids’ bodies are really easily damaged.
As adults we run around with canned rage, sadness, terror, and loneliness…and have to slowly work through the feelings…and how they affect our current personality. There are a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts who have resorted to substances that can kill them to avoid feeling the agony that child abuse survivors feel. There are people driven to suicide by this stuff.
So many of us are told things like: “Oh, that’s in the past.” “Why worry about that now?” “Just forgive and forget.” “Get over it!” Well, if we’re having flashbacks…it’s as if it’s happening…right now. But even if we are not having flashbacks at the time, this stuff can often cast a lifelong shadow over our lives.
There’s potential that’s been shaved off our lives, years we will not get back, time and energy spent in healing from the abuse, time and energy spent running away from the abuse mentally, things in our lives we messed up because we did not have our head on straight, relationships that got damaged or destroyed, interior misery we suffered, self-hatred we didn’t deserve, damage we’ve done to our bodies and minds because we hated ourselves and wanted to die.

…So, that’s why we keep talking about this stuff. By talking about it we ARE trying to put it behind us.
Putting abuse behind us does not happen by clicking our heels together three times and saying, "There's no place like sanity, there's no place like sanity."