This is my first attempt at poetry so the style is armature but we all have to start somewhere :)
The demons dance in darkness
And whisper me their secrets
They tell me bedtime stories
And fill me with regret
The morning comes and still they stay
The light no longer provides relief
Left frozen and choking on my fear
Consumed by imagined grief
My mind provides a brief escape
To my own reality I retreat
The demons they live in here too
But their embrace is soft and sweet
A passing glimpse of beauty
And a kindness I cannot trust
The whispers and your absence
A friendship turned to dust
My demons are my oldest friend
Though they cause my soul to weep
I long to feel their empty kiss
And the tear stain upon my cheek
Friday 20 April 2012
Sunday 1 April 2012
Permanence
One of the biggest struggles I face is one of permanence, or at least my own perception of it. If absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder then for me this notion went into overdrive and absence makes my heart worry, ache and obsess. Conversely I cannot reconcile that others feel the same, as far as I have ever been able to tell, when it comes to others, absence makes the heart forget.
There is an episode of Red Dwarf where Kryten meets an alien who alters herself to be his perfect partner but the rest of the crew also see their fantasy woman (series 4 episode 19 Camille for those interested) That's how I feel sometimes... like I'm forced to be what others want to see and underneath there's this big ugly mess that wants to be loved for who she is. This is very difficult when years of trying to appease others for attention have left me not quite knowing who I am.
My own self image is a split one. On the one hand I lack any real self confidence and am locked in a self loathing cycle any teen would be proud of, however I experience fleeting highs usually fuelled by an achievement in the workplace or by praise and attention from others. It is in these times that I know that no matter how I feel inside I do have the ability to charm others if I so desire. My deep rooted fear is that when I am not with these people they will forget me, re-asses what they know about me or otherwise fall into a mundane indifference that I believe may be a normal relationship but lacks the passion and constant validation I need to feel loved. I want people to obsess about me the way I do about them, but of course they don't, so I begin waiting for the eventual demise of our relationship. Sometimes I cut this short and push the person away, other times I cling desperate to be with the person as much as possible, convinced that by constant interaction in which I put on my best Camille act I can convince them not to leave me, that they need me as much as I need them.
Having spent my life never discussing my true feelings I have recently "come clean" to a couple of friends that I met online and one person I know in real life. All have been wonderful and supportive each in their own way. This should make me feel accepted, like finally I am loved for who I am but it's not the case. Suspicion, doubt and paranoia take over. Do I see that person a little less now? Do we speak less often? Am I temporarily filling a void in the persons life? Once they have found what they are looking for will they leave? The answer? I don't know, probably, but I guess I will never know if that's just what happens or whether I drove them away.
I'm not sure I will ever tell someone I meet again what really goes on inside my head. It makes is so much harder to pretend I won't care when their lives move on and I'm still sat here, reinventing myself again.
There is an episode of Red Dwarf where Kryten meets an alien who alters herself to be his perfect partner but the rest of the crew also see their fantasy woman (series 4 episode 19 Camille for those interested) That's how I feel sometimes... like I'm forced to be what others want to see and underneath there's this big ugly mess that wants to be loved for who she is. This is very difficult when years of trying to appease others for attention have left me not quite knowing who I am.
My own self image is a split one. On the one hand I lack any real self confidence and am locked in a self loathing cycle any teen would be proud of, however I experience fleeting highs usually fuelled by an achievement in the workplace or by praise and attention from others. It is in these times that I know that no matter how I feel inside I do have the ability to charm others if I so desire. My deep rooted fear is that when I am not with these people they will forget me, re-asses what they know about me or otherwise fall into a mundane indifference that I believe may be a normal relationship but lacks the passion and constant validation I need to feel loved. I want people to obsess about me the way I do about them, but of course they don't, so I begin waiting for the eventual demise of our relationship. Sometimes I cut this short and push the person away, other times I cling desperate to be with the person as much as possible, convinced that by constant interaction in which I put on my best Camille act I can convince them not to leave me, that they need me as much as I need them.
Having spent my life never discussing my true feelings I have recently "come clean" to a couple of friends that I met online and one person I know in real life. All have been wonderful and supportive each in their own way. This should make me feel accepted, like finally I am loved for who I am but it's not the case. Suspicion, doubt and paranoia take over. Do I see that person a little less now? Do we speak less often? Am I temporarily filling a void in the persons life? Once they have found what they are looking for will they leave? The answer? I don't know, probably, but I guess I will never know if that's just what happens or whether I drove them away.
I'm not sure I will ever tell someone I meet again what really goes on inside my head. It makes is so much harder to pretend I won't care when their lives move on and I'm still sat here, reinventing myself again.
Monday 19 March 2012
A Day of Two Halves
Part One: Unreasonable Expectations
I woke up this morning and was shaking, I had spent half the night in a state of non sleep worrying about the days appointment and being ridden with guilt at, once again, being the only mother not accompanying their child to the mothers day lunch at school. I'm unsure if the headache that followed was genuine or if I created it to match my physical symptoms to my internal turmoil. Either way it hurt like hell.
My husband stirred, undoubtedly disturbed by my twitching and shaking.
"Are you okay?"
"No"
"Why?"
"I'm scared"
He looked at me briefly through tired eyes and drifted back to sleep.
You bastard! I wanted to scream, Hug me, love me, tell me everything I want to hear.
I didn't say anything. Partly because I could hear the footsteps of my children on the hallway and partly because I knew, as well as he did, that it wouldn't change anything anyway. When I feel like this nothing anyone can say is right, even if it is I don't believe they mean it. I feel like a child being placated so the grown ups can go about dealing with the real issues and real concerns. I am left feeling resentful and angry, distrusting every word.
Perhaps saying noting is the best course of action.
Soon afterwards I heard my phone softly vibrate. At that time of the morning it could only be one of two people and my heart leapt. Someone Cared.....
I jumped out of bed and grabbed my phone heading down the hallway. Sure enough there were two messages. One to make me smile and one showing concern. Like the rush of a drug the wrenching feeling inside was replaced by butterflies.
I sat for a long time with my fingers poised over the keyboard constructing my response. I realised over time though that I want to simply tell them all the things my husband wasn't awake to listen to and to have them make the soothing noises that I have pre planned in the script I carry inside of me. Craving that the lines be acted out precisely to soothe me like a child being sung a lullaby.
I sat watching all of this playing out and ultimately decided that I have no desire to drain another person to abate my fears for the briefest of periods, my husband sleeps exhausted from doing this daily. I clicked away from the message.
Perhaps saying nothing is the best course of action.
**********************************************************************************
Part 2: I Don't Belong Here
I have been shown tot he waiting room. a light, airy space with inoffensive music playing in the back ground.
Slowly other people trickle in. A stroppy teenager who is arguing with her grandparents over them forgetting something or the other. A girl, in her early twenties; pale and overweight in leggings and fake Uggs with a boyfriend that possessed the vacant look borne of a life lacking any stimulation. I look down at myself. I am waring my office attire, I shall be heading into work straight after my appointment. I have a good job, a career even (although it still pains me to admit that I have a career in the financial services industry) two wonderful children and a husband. It's hard not to judge and I try not to but I begin to question what I'm doing here.
Eventually I am taken for my assessment. It is emotionally draining but I remain composed. As the conversation becomes more fluid the nurse soon realises that talking though my mummy issues isn't going to help. There is a common notion that if we just get to the bottom of what caused us to feel a particular way we can begin to heal.
The problem with this is that I am acutely aware of why I am the way I am. Some families grow up lacking the capability to acknowledge or deal with problems. not so in my case. In my family there was an acute psychological awareness. We may not have used our understanding in the healthiestof ways but by God we knew why we did what we did.
What do you do with a case like me then? As with my social standing in life I am in the middle, that grey area. Not a depressive teen nor a full blown psychotic. The answer? They don't know. The nurse must speak to her manager who isn't back for two weeks before they can decide what treatment options there are available so until then I must just wait. Wait to enter a system that I don't truly believe will benefit me or can offer me what I'm looking for.
Oh, and I was done in enough time that I could have gone to the mothers day lunch at school, damn....
Mia Culpa.
I woke up this morning and was shaking, I had spent half the night in a state of non sleep worrying about the days appointment and being ridden with guilt at, once again, being the only mother not accompanying their child to the mothers day lunch at school. I'm unsure if the headache that followed was genuine or if I created it to match my physical symptoms to my internal turmoil. Either way it hurt like hell.
My husband stirred, undoubtedly disturbed by my twitching and shaking.
"Are you okay?"
"No"
"Why?"
"I'm scared"
He looked at me briefly through tired eyes and drifted back to sleep.
You bastard! I wanted to scream, Hug me, love me, tell me everything I want to hear.
I didn't say anything. Partly because I could hear the footsteps of my children on the hallway and partly because I knew, as well as he did, that it wouldn't change anything anyway. When I feel like this nothing anyone can say is right, even if it is I don't believe they mean it. I feel like a child being placated so the grown ups can go about dealing with the real issues and real concerns. I am left feeling resentful and angry, distrusting every word.
Perhaps saying noting is the best course of action.
Soon afterwards I heard my phone softly vibrate. At that time of the morning it could only be one of two people and my heart leapt. Someone Cared.....
I jumped out of bed and grabbed my phone heading down the hallway. Sure enough there were two messages. One to make me smile and one showing concern. Like the rush of a drug the wrenching feeling inside was replaced by butterflies.
I sat for a long time with my fingers poised over the keyboard constructing my response. I realised over time though that I want to simply tell them all the things my husband wasn't awake to listen to and to have them make the soothing noises that I have pre planned in the script I carry inside of me. Craving that the lines be acted out precisely to soothe me like a child being sung a lullaby.
I sat watching all of this playing out and ultimately decided that I have no desire to drain another person to abate my fears for the briefest of periods, my husband sleeps exhausted from doing this daily. I clicked away from the message.
Perhaps saying nothing is the best course of action.
**********************************************************************************
Part 2: I Don't Belong Here
I have been shown tot he waiting room. a light, airy space with inoffensive music playing in the back ground.
Slowly other people trickle in. A stroppy teenager who is arguing with her grandparents over them forgetting something or the other. A girl, in her early twenties; pale and overweight in leggings and fake Uggs with a boyfriend that possessed the vacant look borne of a life lacking any stimulation. I look down at myself. I am waring my office attire, I shall be heading into work straight after my appointment. I have a good job, a career even (although it still pains me to admit that I have a career in the financial services industry) two wonderful children and a husband. It's hard not to judge and I try not to but I begin to question what I'm doing here.
Eventually I am taken for my assessment. It is emotionally draining but I remain composed. As the conversation becomes more fluid the nurse soon realises that talking though my mummy issues isn't going to help. There is a common notion that if we just get to the bottom of what caused us to feel a particular way we can begin to heal.
The problem with this is that I am acutely aware of why I am the way I am. Some families grow up lacking the capability to acknowledge or deal with problems. not so in my case. In my family there was an acute psychological awareness. We may not have used our understanding in the healthiestof ways but by God we knew why we did what we did.
What do you do with a case like me then? As with my social standing in life I am in the middle, that grey area. Not a depressive teen nor a full blown psychotic. The answer? They don't know. The nurse must speak to her manager who isn't back for two weeks before they can decide what treatment options there are available so until then I must just wait. Wait to enter a system that I don't truly believe will benefit me or can offer me what I'm looking for.
Oh, and I was done in enough time that I could have gone to the mothers day lunch at school, damn....
Mia Culpa.
Sunday 18 March 2012
My First Blog
Today is a strange day for me. It's the day before I go for my first psychiatric treatment for my illness.
I longed with all of my heart to get help, for someone to take me seriously enough to help, yet now I am on the eve of embarking on my journey I am scared, scared beyond belief. As paranoia has taken grip I have reached out desperately to those I hold dear, who mostly are in virtual existence, but unfortunately as I should have expected these friendships cannot provide me with the level of support I crave. I am unsure that anything can but I think looking on-line for my solution may have been my biggest mistake
The on-line world can be a strange place. Sure, we all know the stories of people masquerading on-line. Those who use their anonymity to get close to and, ultimately, hurt people. But what of those with no such malice, those who like you and I are simply looking to interact with others and find some one that understands us in his crazy little world? Are these as healthy as they seem?
My issue with these friendships is that they lack roots as they formed from a virtual nothingness. Without roots they lack social inhibition. Without the concern that this new friend or interest may then be speaking to your work colleagues, your oldest friend, your family or anyone else that forms part of your reality, there are no barriers.
Conversation flows fast in the rush to get to know one another and form something meaningful. We all too often allow our guard to drop, we show a side of ourselves the world doesn't normally see. Sometimes, as with on-line bullying, this an be a hideous reminder of the cruelty of human nature. Other times, well, at other times it is is heart breakingly fragile and beautiful as two lonely souls try to connect.
The heartbreak comes when you feel you have met someone special and lay bare your soul. This can be intoxicating at first, providing a release so intimate and so intoxicating it could rival sex, for what feeling is greater than one of true acceptance.
The problem comes when this fire dies. A closeness based on a deep understanding, a co dependant release often requires constant validation and this can be exhausting for both parties. There comes a time when the needs of one person bear down too heavy on the other and the friendship becomes yet another burden. The longing for the simple escapism that led them to social networking in the first instance manifests itself. Slowly (or swiftly) one party may pull away. Without the social inhibitions to worry about the effect this may have and without having to witness the pain it may cause there is nothing to stop the person you trusted, that you bared your soul to, pulling away. Worse still, you may have to witness their inevitable transition onto another friendship via the painfully visual honesty that is social networking.
You can be left standing at the window looking in at the party you were once invited to wondering where the hell it all went wrong.
I longed with all of my heart to get help, for someone to take me seriously enough to help, yet now I am on the eve of embarking on my journey I am scared, scared beyond belief. As paranoia has taken grip I have reached out desperately to those I hold dear, who mostly are in virtual existence, but unfortunately as I should have expected these friendships cannot provide me with the level of support I crave. I am unsure that anything can but I think looking on-line for my solution may have been my biggest mistake
The on-line world can be a strange place. Sure, we all know the stories of people masquerading on-line. Those who use their anonymity to get close to and, ultimately, hurt people. But what of those with no such malice, those who like you and I are simply looking to interact with others and find some one that understands us in his crazy little world? Are these as healthy as they seem?
My issue with these friendships is that they lack roots as they formed from a virtual nothingness. Without roots they lack social inhibition. Without the concern that this new friend or interest may then be speaking to your work colleagues, your oldest friend, your family or anyone else that forms part of your reality, there are no barriers.
Conversation flows fast in the rush to get to know one another and form something meaningful. We all too often allow our guard to drop, we show a side of ourselves the world doesn't normally see. Sometimes, as with on-line bullying, this an be a hideous reminder of the cruelty of human nature. Other times, well, at other times it is is heart breakingly fragile and beautiful as two lonely souls try to connect.
The heartbreak comes when you feel you have met someone special and lay bare your soul. This can be intoxicating at first, providing a release so intimate and so intoxicating it could rival sex, for what feeling is greater than one of true acceptance.
The problem comes when this fire dies. A closeness based on a deep understanding, a co dependant release often requires constant validation and this can be exhausting for both parties. There comes a time when the needs of one person bear down too heavy on the other and the friendship becomes yet another burden. The longing for the simple escapism that led them to social networking in the first instance manifests itself. Slowly (or swiftly) one party may pull away. Without the social inhibitions to worry about the effect this may have and without having to witness the pain it may cause there is nothing to stop the person you trusted, that you bared your soul to, pulling away. Worse still, you may have to witness their inevitable transition onto another friendship via the painfully visual honesty that is social networking.
You can be left standing at the window looking in at the party you were once invited to wondering where the hell it all went wrong.
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