As a male, I was raised to take control, suck it up, be tough, people depend on you. My mother did, she depended on me to feed my sister and I, tie her shoes, clean the house, do the yard, don't half ass... Yet regardless of how much I did I was called a failure, spit on, beat, whittled down into thin piece of something that would snap and I physically would snap, I'd lash out at the walls, punching holes, taking her razor to my skin or matches to my wrist. Then I escaped at 15, regretting the decision to leave my 10 yr old sister exposed to the lifeless land I left. I got to a safe place but when you realize that safety is foreign and you've lived in a constant state of survival and alertness, on the edge of a cliff to certain self inflicted or domestic death... It hits you, you are now aware, of all the shit you've been dragged through. Metaphorically, you smell, you look gross and you're broken. But on the outside, you save face, you act normal but internally you're pained or crying, you start to see all the things you've been conditioned to see. Failure, worthless, gross, a-motherfucking-piece-of-shit-Cory. Without being able to talk to someone for fear of losing the safety of this new place, you hole it up, cut yourself off from your past, act like you see in tv and movies, take on a new identity in the same body. However, you're no architect, no carpenter, or builder. Leaks spring forth like a corroded pipe. And your facade breaks, but you know what to do, you fall back on old coping mechanisms, punch cars, burn wrist, drink, repeat. You don't dare say to your friends, I was abused because it's not in your conditioning, no man would say that, no person wants to be around a head case. They think your being cool -alcoholic-, edgy -self inflicted burns -, showing off -punching cars-. They don't ask, because that's their conditioning. When you slip up you just hit the bottle, no one asks bc you're 20 and it's okay. Fast forward 5 years and I'm in therapy, I have a breakthrough, I have a therapist that cares and I dump it all on her lap... Same session she tells me that she is being promoted and I won't be her patient anymore. I stop going, and 5 more years later I find myself with Shelley and I'm starting the painful process of reliving my memories but with the ability to talk to my childselfs, to assure them I'm okay. I'm not but I'm better than they had it, I wish I could see how far I've come, I wish they could but self talk is not my strong suit. This is just the surface or my past, the thing I can't change about myself, the thing that is ever present but I persist it putting the pieces back together. Sometimes they cut me and I bleed, sometimes the memories are too dark and need multiple sessions to get through, sometimes I think I'm lying to myself that therapy is working. Sometimes I hide for fear of showing my kids my conditioning. Sometimes I'm scared people will leave me like my mom did at 4 or that safe place at 18, or that therapist at 25... I'm scared. 10 years ago I told people I didn't fear death bc I used to dream about it nightly, dying in gruesome different ways, but now I know, I know that was the brain of an abused and demoralized child in a dark place, begging for it to end. I'm scared to ruin my kids, my marriage, my family, but most of all I'm scared I can't get better, can't fix myself, can't progress. I'm scared. |