The Abyss
These last few weeks have been difficult for me. I feel as if a sinkhole has opened up beneath my fortress, and it is pulling me in.
I think it would be easier if my mother had hit me. Even back then, that was something people acknowledged. If a parent hit you, someone HAD to take action. But if your mom was crazy?
"She's just a little overprotective, honey. That's understandable in this day and age."
"Your mother is just a very intense person. You'll get through this together."
"Mom's just...Mom."
No one wants to see it. And you're left wondering if it's all in your head. No one else sees anything wrong. It must just be me.
It's worse when your own family denies it. If the people you trust, who live with you day in and day out, see the same behavior, don't acknowledge a problem, how can there be a problem?
I get all tangled up in my head. Am I just being melodramatic? Everyone's families have problems. It's not like I was molested or my parents beat me. Why can't I just get over it?
Then, well, so it doesn't matter if it is all in my head. It's my pain and I own it. But I've already moved 200 miles from home, and she's STILL in my head. What else can I do?
I wrote a few weeks ago about how I wasn't able to escape into my books anymore. That realization was earth-shattering.
As a kid, when Mom started yelling, when everything got too dark, I could pick up Nancy Drew or Little Women, and shut the whole world out. Nothing could penetrate the new worlds books built in my head. For just a little while, I could live on the prairie with the Ingalls family or in the city with the March girls. Books were my only refuge in a house I (literally) couldn't escape.
Realizing that I had lost that -my safety net, my security blanket - was just too much. And it seems that the journey from neurotic to psychotic isn't that long or hard of a trip.
Fortunately, this time I reached out for help. And I chose the right person - not another person to minimize the situation or to betray me - but the person I hired to help guide me through this.
It hasn't been easy, trying to climb out of this abyss, but I've finally got a flashlight, and if I'm lucky, the light will hold out 'til I see the sun.
I think it would be easier if my mother had hit me. Even back then, that was something people acknowledged. If a parent hit you, someone HAD to take action. But if your mom was crazy?
"She's just a little overprotective, honey. That's understandable in this day and age."
"Your mother is just a very intense person. You'll get through this together."
"Mom's just...Mom."
No one wants to see it. And you're left wondering if it's all in your head. No one else sees anything wrong. It must just be me.
It's worse when your own family denies it. If the people you trust, who live with you day in and day out, see the same behavior, don't acknowledge a problem, how can there be a problem?
I get all tangled up in my head. Am I just being melodramatic? Everyone's families have problems. It's not like I was molested or my parents beat me. Why can't I just get over it?
Then, well, so it doesn't matter if it is all in my head. It's my pain and I own it. But I've already moved 200 miles from home, and she's STILL in my head. What else can I do?
I wrote a few weeks ago about how I wasn't able to escape into my books anymore. That realization was earth-shattering.
As a kid, when Mom started yelling, when everything got too dark, I could pick up Nancy Drew or Little Women, and shut the whole world out. Nothing could penetrate the new worlds books built in my head. For just a little while, I could live on the prairie with the Ingalls family or in the city with the March girls. Books were my only refuge in a house I (literally) couldn't escape.
Realizing that I had lost that -my safety net, my security blanket - was just too much. And it seems that the journey from neurotic to psychotic isn't that long or hard of a trip.
Fortunately, this time I reached out for help. And I chose the right person - not another person to minimize the situation or to betray me - but the person I hired to help guide me through this.
It hasn't been easy, trying to climb out of this abyss, but I've finally got a flashlight, and if I'm lucky, the light will hold out 'til I see the sun.
posted by Cary at 11:10 PM
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