why I hurt myself

I don't want to be bad. I don't.  But I am sad and hurt and I hate. I hate so much. Those things make me bad, and I don't want to be bad. So there must be a punishment.  Punishment must happen because i do feel sad. I am hurt. And I hate. I punish not because I am bad, I punish because I don't want to be bad.

I want pot brownies

If the world were to end tomorrow, I'd eat pot brownies today. I'm a recovering drug addict, if you use "recovering" loosely. Some might call me a "dry drunk" because I don't go to AA or NA meetings and I'm craving, and maybe that label fits a bit. Really, though, I'm an odd size and nothing fits very well. Regardless of labels, I'd like a pot brownie tonight. And tomorrow night. And especially Friday and Saturday night. In fact, I'd eat fucking pot brownies all weekend if I wasn't so scared of killing myself in the face of crushing apathy or going to jail or disappointing everyone in my life.

I told a friend today I wanted some of the sweet herb. He told me he'd give me some. He told me he'd bake it into a brownie, that I shouldn't have too much since I've been clean for 11 years, that the art of growing potent pot has been perfected since 2000, and if I started to get out of control (again) he would be a good friend and reel me in. So really, I don't have anything to worry about. Sans knowing if the world is ending tomorrow, I can go ahead and eat the fucking pot brownie because my friend has my back.

Why am I trying to escape? I don't feel particularly "bad." I am, however, quite conscious of some others in my head screaming a lot and wanting to punish myself. My therapist says this self-punishment thing is based in deep seated toxic shame. Many of us are working this idea much of the time. On the one hand, a shame-based me is a painfully obvious observation. My behaviors and feelings and repetitive thought processes clearly declare a deep well of shame. On the other hand, I don't know what I am ashamed about. I know what happened to me as a child, I know it wasn't my fault, I know the feelings (physical and emotional) were expected and can be explained reasonably. It's so fucking frustrating that I can't find the disconnect between the logic and the feelings and just simply connect them. Or maybe I can....and that's why I  seek a luscious pot brownie.

These red herrings I toss before my selves, red herrings like beating myself up over craving pot brownies, they would make a nice sandwich. Followed by dessert - and you know what I want for dessert.

Crucified

Not with nails, not to a cross, but I am crucified nonetheless. The little scratch I made with the utility knife is a tardis - much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Inside that little, pathetic cut is myself, stabbing at my arm repetitively, digging out chunks of flesh, screaming. I am treating myself "cruelly," causing pain and suffering. I am hurting myself. I engage in sadistic self-torture because I feel shame and the result is more shame. SHAME on me. Heaped upon me. Burying me with its heaviness. I wish I could dig out of this shame but it is a tardis - much bigger inside.

I wish I had not given the drugs to my therapist. I wish they were on the counter where they have been sitting for months, calling me seductively but quietly, with class and tact. "Eat me, and float for 12 hours, on a couch of soft nothing." Now they are miles away, on his counter, screaming at me with vehement, white trash rage "you fucking BITCH! You left us and now instead of floating with us we sit in the dark, unconsumed, while your FUCKING rage consumes you! SHAME!" Instead I take the psychiatrically condoned anti-psychotic tranquilizer that I won't float upon, rather I will be smothered with. It is oppressive, not fun, which is why I can take it. But FUCK the doctors, I took a non-sanctioned lovely pill I got from a pharmacy from India, fair and square right off the internet. Does that make me a drug addict? Is this a slip? Did I just stab my sobriety in the back? Is it so wrong for one of my selves to take one pill to calm me down, while another one of my selves takes a pill to keep me awake? 

Maybe "crucify" isn't the right word. Maybe "sabotage" is more fitting.

It's been a hard fucking day, people. I dare anyone who has never been sadistically tortured by another to attempt to understand (i.e. crawl into the head of) someone who has been sadistically tortured by another. 

The mind itself is a tardis, transporting its soul to the past to relive, relive, relive. 

Jesus was crucified. For my sins, apparently, and the sins of the bad people of the world, so that we wouldn't have to die. But I want to die. I am sick of crucification and I can't seem to stop the shame and the rage and triggering that gets me to this place. I am dangerous like this, so much more dangerous than when I am simply "depressed." I am alive when I am like this, so much more alive than when I am depressed. I am lethal when I am like this, alive and deadly. I could jump off the cross and save myself, I suppose, but my purpose is a tardis, so big inside that I cannot see it from my vantage point here on the precipice of shame. I crucify myself, so that the little one inside can live without the heaviness of the sins of the bad people of the world. I rage so that I can feel alive, and even if the rage ends in my suicide then at least for awhile I felt alive. I bet right before Jesus died he felt the most alive. 

Faith in the Face of Rape

"Oh god!" It's the classic outcry of orgasm....and that's not a fluke. Sex is spiritual. Rape kills a part of your soul.

I can see the rapist's face when I was a teenager and I can feel him inside me and I can smell his dirty couch. How do I retain any sense of faith in the face of rape?

My mind wanders backwards in time to that place that is shadow and perception. I'm too young, maybe 3, to make much sense of anything. As I write this I become aroused and sick to my stomach at the same time. I don't know what the face of this rapist looks like. I have seen a picture of him, with me on his lap, but his face is blank. Yet I survived so I must have had some kind of little girl faith. Why would I not curl up and die? Why would I create these selves to protect me if I didn't have some kind of fundamental belief in things I could not at the time see (like 'hope' and 'goodness' and 'safety')? What was I saving myself for if not to redeem some small piece of my soul?

Maybe I have faith because I cannot see his face.

Zero, Nothingness, Suicide, and Buddhism

I have struggled with "suicidal ideology" for years. And years. My therapist has never said my suicidal thoughts and wishes and fantasies were delusional, but I think they are. I just have never been able to formulate a logical and convincing argument against suicide. All the pablum usually offered up by self-help and programs and Oprah sound nice, but never touch the deep truth that I believe suicide would end my suffering. Tonight I realized that suicide is a "flat earth" option - a delusion.

If someone believes that the earth is flat, they might ask "will I fall off the edge of the earth if I reach the end? Or will I run into a wall of sorts?" The questions themselves are silly to those of us who believe the earth is round, but to a flat earth believer the questions are valid. So it is with suicide. My belief that that suicide will end my suffering is based on a grasping notion of both "self" and "finality." I grasp at this idea that "I" suffer and that death will bring an end, but that's silly. "I" only exist in this moment and this moment ends. Then this moment ends. Then this moment ends. My suffering is endlessly ending.... The delusion is that I believe in both a self and an ending. But that is flat earth thinking. Perhaps the earth is round.

Zero is nothing is round. I had an algebra teacher that spent an hour once discussing the concept of zero as an assumption and as such was proof that God existed. Buddhism, in my limited understanding, is all about nothingness but not at all about God. Wouldn't it be ironic if nothing was proof of God?

Today: Lights

We strung lights up in our "park." We turned on the Christmas tree lights. We lit up the flashing Santa. We turned on the lights that lead through the woods to the sauna. I lit candles. As I stared at the candles, I felt happy and satisfied, peaceful, content. I thought the candles were quite beautiful and I was thankful for my home and for such a lovely day. I wondered why.

I took a rather large dose of my medicine earlier. Not more than prescribed, I just missed one dose during the day so I took it along with the other dose all at once. I wonder if that made me feel so good. Anti-psychotic medication perhaps brings me closer to God.

I had an emotional melt-down last night. It was unusual. Luke and I were lying in bed watching tv. In a matter of minutes the sounds of the tv became excruciatingly loud, the smell of my husband became overwhelmingly musky, the light in the room was ice cold blue and pierced my skull. I rolled over, panting, not sure what was happening and felt the one familiar thing - paralysis. I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes tightly. I buried my nose in my pillow. I found my voice at last and screamed and screamed and screamed. My husband reached out to touch me and I screamed "Don't touch me!" in a crazed kind of voice. I couldn't bear touch - not with the light and the smell and the sounds.

I don't know how long I screamed. Luke said it wasn't long. Did I enjoy the lights so much today because I screamed through them last night?

"What If" History

I am a history teacher. As such, I hear the phrase “what if” many times a year. I used to tell the students “it’s pointless to play ‘what if’ history.” I used to steer the conversation to what actually happened. Something changed this year. As a class, we play ‘what if’ history a lot. What if the invading Europeans and Native Americans worked together to figure out how to peacefully co-exist? What if John Brown had been successful in his attempt to free the slaves, one plantation at a time? What if women were valued as equal partners in the world? What if we figured out a way to share the abundance of food our world produces so that no one anywhere went hungry? I used to always say that we study history to learn from the mistakes of the past so as not to make them again. Now I say we study history to understand the dynamics of cause and effect so that we can make choices today that will produce the effects we long for. We study history so that we can understand how we came to be where we are today, with huge national debt, continued racism, and poverty…as well as the high standard of living that enables us to enact measures to protect the environment, the freedoms of speech that allows us to question and protest and support what we feel passionately about, and the leisure time to blog and check facebook.

I’ve begun to play ‘what if’ history with myself, as well. So often I hear people with dissociative disorders say that they would not trade their life for one without parts. I used to say that as well. I used to say that the trauma of my past has made me who I am today and that I like who I am. I remember a woman in the hospital once get passionately irate about the term dissociative “disorder” because she did not feel it was a “disorder” at all – it was a logical and helpful way to cope with an illogical and painful trauma. All I could think was that she was sitting in a mental hospital, stripped of her rights, shoeless. If the “disorder” was so awesome, why wasn’t she out doing something she enjoyed???? Surely if someone is so fucking happy with how they turned out after being sexually and/or physically abused then they would be out fucking 3 year olds and making them eat dog shit so that they, too, could have “dissociation.” Obviously, mental illness is called an “illness” because it causes some kind of suffering. A disorder is called such because it puts the individual or society at risk in some way, it’s out of order, abnormal, pathological. It sure isn’t fun.

So I play “what if.” What if I had not been raped? What if I had been molested, but my parents found out and got me help right away? What if I had not been molested? What if I had grown up in a secure, functional, stable home environment and my intelligence and creativity had been nurtured and I never, ever, ever was sadistically tortured during the crucial childhood developmental stages, or ever? I bet I would have been happier.

What has trauma and the resulting pathological dissociation taken from me? Would I trade who I am today for someone who could have sex and enjoy it? Would I trade who I am today for someone who never spent weeks or months trying to convince themselves not to commit suicide? How about someone who could work a full work week, visit friends over the weekend, get their house cleaned, take walks, read books, listen to and play music, get a Master’s degree, a black belt, worship god with a clean conscience, bake cookies, and not worry about getting too exhausted and spinning into an emotional mess or having a psychotic break? Would I willingly erase the burn scars and knife cut scars on my arms if I could? How about never having to feel like I need to burn or cut myself in the first place? I would. I would trade who I am today for someone who functioned more within the “normal” parameters of American society. I not only grieve that there is a negative social stigma to being abnormal, I grieve that I am abnormal.

But “what if” history is only useful if it leads to an understanding of today and to choices that bring desired effects. “What if” history is fiction, and I am living in non-fiction. So I have to accept that I am who I am and move forward. Accepting who I am does not mean embracing the abnormal/disorder/illness and telling myself the lie that I would have it no other way. I would like it some other way. That’s why I’m working so fucking hard to have a “more” normal life. I am deeply sad that I will never erase the scars. I am deeply sad that what happened to me has made me who I am. I am crushed that the “I am” who could have been was murdered by trauma and you and the world and I will never know her. The choices I make today are not so that I can be some fictional “what if” person that is normal. The choices I make today are so that I can suffer less with who I am. And that is sad.