A traitor to the clan

 

I’m in pain , I’m enraged. Hurt by the very people that I share blood with. Mentally and physically worn down by the scars of abandonment. Maybe I sabotage myself on purpose because I’m not feeling worthy of being loved. It's instilled from childhood,  you learn from the people that raised you. I’ve been sitting in my own head struggling with these demons. It’s all so  complicated but you don’t fucking know me.

 
All the self-help books, Tony Robbins’ speeches, and ice cream in the world can't heal the Betrayal, abandonment, deceit and manipulation.
Damaged, broken and scared . But so are shooting stars and comets.
Just one big dysfunctional family

Anybody who grew up in a dysfunctional family knows one of the cardinal rules: The person who mentions a problem is the person who caused the problem.
Let some low-on-the-family-totem-pole person raise a destructive issue that’s hidden in plain sight and all hell breaks loose.
No, the family doesn’t suddenly wake up and say, “OMG, you’re right. We have to do something about that!” Instead, everyone within earshot rounds on the poor sap who dared mention the family secret and the bullying begins:
“Why are you always such a troublemaker?”
“If you’d just learn to keep your mouth shut, everything would be fine.”
“If you were a better person, your mother wouldn’t drink so much!” (Or your uncle wouldn’t come on to you or your parents wouldn’t argue so much or your father wouldn’t have deserted the family or whatever.)
And so on and so on. It’s absolutely depressing how alike dysfunctional families are. Worse, let said this poor sap, in desperation, take his complaint outside the family in an attempt to get help and … well, you ain’t seen hell until you’ve seen that.
Because then this sap is not only a liar, a troublemaker, a tramp, a weakling, or whatever else s/he’s being scapegoated for. Then the sap is disloyal. A traitor to the clan. A violator of the code of silence.

And you are loved

I have seen your forgiving heart.

I have seen your grace.

I have seen you be selfless so many times, giving all your love to the ones closest to you, and even to strangers. I have seen you smile on your worst days, and find the strength to keep on giving, even when you can barely lift your head.

You are incredibly beautiful, inside and out, never giving up on the ones you love, even when you’re exhausted by the world.

I watch you, day after day, pick up the chipped pieces of yourself and stick them together with a tape that’s barely strong enough to get you through the next night.

Yet you continue.

You give your heart to people who don’t see your beauty through the brokenness. You console and comfort friends who do not understand the power of your care, your forgiveness.

You surround yourself with people that you need to fix, with people that you must work to love. But even when you fall into your bed at the end of each night, you don’t see what an incredible difference you’ve made.

You think that you deserve the cold words, the turned faces. You think you deserve friends that pull away and men who don’t love you back.

You somehow turn everything back to yourself, and wonder if you’ll ever be good enough.

Well you are good enough.

You’re more than enough.

I wish I could tell you that you are noticed. That the wonderful, little ways you brighten people’s lives are important. Are valued. I wish I could tell you that your eyes sparkle and bring life to ones’ whose days feel dull and empty. That your smile lifts people from their anger. That your laugh makes those around you want to close their eyes and lean their heads back to bask in the sweet sound.

I wish I could tell you that God has made you perfect, just as you are—a fighter, a sinner, a flawed and broken and beautiful warrior of love.

I wish I could tell you to keep loving, even when the world looks the other way.

I wish I could tell you that sometimes you give your heart to people who don’t deserve it, in love or in friendship, and it becomes a hard lesson learned.

I wish I could tell you that you must never accept a half-love, a love that is nowhere near the amount you give.

I wish I could tell you that you are a blessing to so many people.

And that you need to bless yourself sometimes.

I wish I could tell you that life will be so hard, but you must keep on living. That you must find reasons to celebrate, to pull strength, to stay pure, even when people hurt you.

I wish I could tell you that you will face so much pain, but you cannot let it break you. You must find a way to see yourself, your worth, and know that you are an important part of this world.

I wish I could tell you that you matter.

And you are loved

 

I Am Heavy

Nothing can really prepare you, no matter how many times you’ve been down this road before. That is the simplest way I can come up with to try to explain it. I just don’t feel quite right. It’s like walking on eggshells, but I’m cautious of myself instead of someone else. I keep turning each corner while holding my breath. It’s like part of me is anticipating it. Part of me is expecting it to be there lurking and waiting for me in the shadows. And yet, I am not prepared. I am heavy. People say “what was the trigger?” I don’t know. Would you believe me if I said there truly isn’t one? Maybe it is the weather. Or maybe it is because this is a season of transition. It doesn’t make sense, even to me, even though I am living it. I’ve been told on a multitude of occasions, and I’d like to agree, that I am a pretty self-aware individual. But this is something I cannot pinpoint.

Triggers make sense. I get them. I know strategies to avoid and prevent them. I know ways to identify them. I’ve learned how to cope when they happen. I am heavy. The kind of heavy that makes you move a little slower. It makes breathing a little harder. It makes the world look so fast, and makes the thought of trying to keep up with the pace exhausting. Putting on my makeup seems like such an accomplishment. I think the hardest thing is, when you’re known for being nothing short of the energizer bunny on a day-to-day basis, you cause a scene if you are simply quiet. If I don’t make eye contact, crack jokes, or smile, it’ll blow my cover. It’s not that I don’t want to be engaged, present and joyful, it is just that I feel so empty and doing any more than just going through the motions is giving more of myself than I have to give. And yet I continue to do it.

 Because what if I act the way I’m feeling? What if I slouch in my seat and stare at the wall? What if I don’t acknowledge those around me, and I embrace my exhaustion? I’ll tell you what. It causes somewhat of a scene. It causes worry. And the worry often comes with pain. And seeing those who know me on any level feel pain in regard to me, honestly just makes me heavier. It makes it harder. What if someone asks if I’m ok? Do they really want to know? If I tell the truth, will it push them away? Will we both walk away feeling worse? If I smile and say “I’m great” does that really make their concern leave? Does it make my heaviness dissipate? Or will they feel dismissed, and I feel even more alone? My world is racing faster than ever. And I feel sluggish at best. Slow and steady wins the race they say. I do not lack hope. I believe deeply in hope. 

Sometimes I just don’t know how to tap into it. Sometimes I don’t know how to let that carry me. Misunderstanding feels like a theme in my life lately. I feel misunderstood by the world around me. I feel misunderstood by my peers. And yet I don’t know how to help them understand. What I do know, that this darkness has come and gone before. But being heavy makes it  hard to move. And I refuse to move closer to the darkness. I have fallen into that rabbit hole. I will wait out the storm. I’m going to have to choose the uncertainty of hope, over the certainty of pain. And when the sun appears tomorrow, I will move forward and choose healing. And there I will embrace hope again

 

Warning label attached

She is difficult to love, but only in the sense that she has high standards. She is unwilling to settle for one-sided love. If you are going to enter a relationship with her, you need to commit. She is not interested in holding half of your heart or half of your attention. She wants all or nothing.
She knows what she deserves, which is why you should expect her to speak up whenever you disrespect her. She will not allow anyone to walk over her heels. If you hurt her, you are going to hear about it. She refuses to bottle up her emotions because being authentic is in her blood. She doesn’t know any other way to conduct herself.
She has a fire within her that she is unafraid of releasing. When she is angry, she will spend hours ranting about whatever is on her mind. When she is upset, she will cry buckets in front of you. She won’t pretend everything is okay when she feels like her world is falling apart. She will be real with you, even when you would rather hear pretty lies.
If you want her, you are going to have to fight for the relationship. She will do the same, but she won’t do it alone. She won’t be the only person putting effort into your love.
She is not easy to love because she will do what is right, not what is comfortable. She won’t let you get away with murder. When you screw up, she won’t forgive you if it seems like your apologies are inauthentic. She won’t give you a third chance if you have proven you cannot be trusted. She won’t put you before herself because she loves herself.
The thought of being single does not scare her — and that’s what makes her such a force to be reckoned with. If you hurt her, she will not hesitate to leave you. It doesn’t matter how much she cares about you. If you stop treating her well, she will stop coming around. She will drop you the second she gets reduced to your second choice.
Because of her high standards, you might consider her difficult to love, but she is also difficult to forget.
She is the kind of person who will stay stuck on your mind years after leaving. You will struggle to get over her. You won’t be able to find anyone else like her.
After she leaves, you will miss the way she looked at you like you were the only person she saw. The way she told the truth even when a lie would be easier. The way she never let anyone else stop her from speaking her mind.
Long after she leaves, you will still be trying to figure out a way to get her back, because you won’t want to live without her. Even though you felt like she was difficult to love while you still had her, you are going to realize how much more difficult it is to forget her

“She’s like broken
a glass.
Dangerous
with sharp
edges;
but beautifully
complex.”

Reflection

 

My tears streamed down my face, desperately grasping at narratives to try and justify her absence from my entire life. Forgetting that I am now grown, I think for a moment that I can start again and give her everything she never gave me. Sometimes I wish that impossibility could be true. Then again, is it naïve to assume just because someone grew you in your womb that your presence would have a positive impact on your life? It started with a physically absent biological mother and ended with an emotionally absent soul. Both are broken in different ways, they are full of anger and sadness that flow from their neglected inner worlds, and in turn, they can only see their external world through half-empty glasses. Sometimes people can do bad things for good reasons and good things for bad reasons, and sometimes it’s both. But mostly, they are just lost in a kaleidoscope of emotion, unknowingly casting people around them under the same spell. The only way this can be lifted is by looking deep into the anger and pain while catching your own reflection. I like to think I can break this legacy of trauma by trying to understand my own demons so equally I can try and understand yours. The most healing thing is to try and see the mirror image in our emotional experiences because this allows room for empathy and forgiveness. I wish I could have seen myself reflected in the mirror of my mother’s sadness, but I didn’t.