Trigger Warning: This post deals with some heavy fucking issues. One may be a trigger for some of you. Nothing is graphic, I still cannot do that myself, but it is a trigger nonetheless. Skip and come back later for a recipe or something funny if you wish. My feelings will be just fine.
I have always had these traits. These “things must be this way” feelings. The betrayal when they were not correct. To calm down as a child, I would repeat motions, movements, paragraphs in books–it soothed my mind that just continued to tell me lies.
You are ugly. You are no good. Your brother is a shining star, you darken him by your presence. Your friends leave because they hate you. No one ever really likes you. You are ignorant. You are fat and unhealthy. You shame your family. The Gods do not talk to you like they talk to others because you are not worthy of any love.
These are lies.
They got worse as I aged. As I grew up and moved to college, a new lie was added. Your body is so ugly, this is all you can get. They could not love you, they only love what your body can do for theirs. They only care in an animal way. A lizard brain way. In my far away room, my mother was not there to tell these lies to. To be talked away from the ledge I always walked to and then away…to and then away…and so on.
I was very promiscuous. I was raped before I was 21. I was scared and showered and showered and showered. A coworker made me tell. It did no good. I was young and stupid and ruined any evidence of anything. I made my father cry. My grandfather cry. Now there were lies and guilt and “you deserve it” running through my head.
I graduated college and went from man to man to man. Seeking safety. Seeking …something, ANYTHING, to stop the loop in my head. I was dumb and was not thinking. I was panicking and grasping at anyone who I thought might save me from those thoughts and images.
I found a decent apartment, and then the man I had left. I was tired. So tired. So very, very tired. I talked to Mom. I spoke about lots of things, but not really what I needed to. She heard it anyway. She said she had a puppy. It needed a home, as it was a dwarf and the other dogs bullied it. Of course I would take a puppy!
Specka is my child. She has always been, since the first moment she came to my house. She was the child I should not have had when I worked three jobs and could not be home for more than four hours a day and had no one to walk her. She messed in the house and I cleaned it up. I never scolded her.
She was the child I had when the next man left while I was at work. Just ::poof:: gone. Stole my computer. Left a note full of bile and hate. I was tired. And hysterical. And manic. I raved and cried and …I don’t remember. For two hours. I wanted it to just all stop. How loud everything became in my head…it would have stopped but, then I saw her little face. I couldn’t stop. She needed me. No matter how broken her momma was, she needed me.
It is appropriate, I feel that, coming up on this yearly anniversary of being raped and when all those lies are louder in my head, my mother finally told me the truth about Specka. She is more than just my baby. She is a semi-trained mental health and emotional support animal. She just needs Mom to fill out the licensing info and she could fly free on planes. I say semi-trained because I have spoiled my princess terribly, and she would work for no one else. She cleans my tears from my face and ALWAYS knows my mood. She is there whenever I am feeling …tired. In fact, the worse I want things to stop, the more IN MY FACE she is.
I needed the therapy I have now years ago. It would have told me what was wrong and stopped me from blindly trying to fix what I could not see to find. The knowledge that Mom sort of knew, sort of could tell in that way that mothers have, and helped the way she could that would not push me from her, fills me with SAFE. A quiet sense of safe.
I have pills now. I have names for my problems now. I have someone to talk to. I have a husband who is safety incarnate, and, I still have my baby. 7 years in, she will always be my baby. And my safety.
I will never forget what my Mother told me earlier this week. I will never get over my problems, but I will now have the tools to deal with it for the foreseeable future. This anniversary of what has made me leave movie theaters (graphic scenes), skip chapters, leave conversations, and feel dirty in a way I will never quite get over has inspired something a little more now.
Love. Love for my safety. Love for my family both the furry and non-furry.
~M~
