overwhelmed

i am today. the end of the year is near and though i am greatful, i have mild trepedation and elation at the same time. always the paradox within me...i feel that is what my mother should have called me...Paradox instead of Penny. crazy but true.

i spent the last 4 days of Christmas almost completely alone except for my pets. it was nice in a way to just relax but hard for me to do also when i have SO many things that must be done. only so many hours in a day, yet now i really need to focus on taking care of myself...mind, heart, soul and body. it is vital to my well-being and continued existance. living with PTSD everyday is literally HELL. death would be SO much easier but not an option as i must be here to raise my son.

having just spoke with his father makes me feel more paniced as his health is rapidly decreasing...a man of 41 with diabetes, hypertension, a few mild heart attacks under his belt, neuropathy, arythmia and now the blood vessels in his lungs are damaged not allowing him to breathe fully. this of course is NOT good for my panic disorder which i working ferverantly to overcome, but it is a hard, long road to healing. my heart is racing and i've already had my medication to help with the panic/anxiety attack.

i feel like bawling but what good what that do besides elevate my blood pressure and heart rate further. i feel trapped and stifled. i want to run but there is no where to go and i just wish to God or the universe that someone was here to just hold me for a bit and tell me it would be ok. this endless cycle of my disorder is a bitch. i react to things which trigger my PTSD so strongly which alienates others making me isolate myself so i won't make people i love and care for dearly uncomfortable or hurt their feelings. so i'm caught in this fucking endless cycle.

i'm made more attempts of late to get out more and even try dating again, which scares the HELL out me. how can i trust men? they lie or tell you what you wish to hear to get close to you to get what they want. some go the extra mile making you fall hard for them only to pull the rug out from under your feet. the last one raped my very soul which has been FAR worse than my physical rape 2 1/2 years ago or the sexual abuse i endured as a child.

i miss my old silly, sassy self and relish the small glimpses i catch of her now and then. i want that back!!! i want to be carefree, confident, assertive and happy again. while my happiness doesn't come from others, it goes hand in hand with my self worth which the men in my life beginning with my sperm donor, have diminished a piece at a time until i feel there is nearly nothing left of me.

i attend counseling and group thereapy weekly now again to really dig down to the core of the issue that plagues me. i know that my sexual molestation at age 5-6 by 3 teenage boys that were part of our family was the beginning of the horrible blueprint that was put upon my life. i began dying a little everyday once i was old enough to realize what had happened to me and too ashamed to tell a soul until i was a grown woman. i denied to my brother what had happened to us when he asked me about it one time. i told him he'd must have had a bad nightmare because i didn't of what he was speaking.

how interesting the human mind is...we will bury things from ourselves for decades to preserve ourselves. i wonder if i'd have been better off disclosing the abuse when i was a child, instead of pretending it had never happened in the first place?

i know now that the immense resentment and dislike i've had toward my mother for nearly my entire life stems from the fact that she didn't protect me from these men who hurt me. she entrusted me to them to take care of me and they abused me instead. why wasn't she more careful with me? i was such a fun, precocious child much like Gavin and never knew strangers. she didn't even notice how i stopped being so gregarious and outgoing. my mother never questioned why i would rather beat the snot out of boys instead of just befriending them. how could she not see??? why wasn't i important enough to her? i couldn't depend upon her to keep me safe, so i had to become invisible instead.

invisibility is a common coping practice for victims of sexual assault, abuse and rape. if you make yourself unnoticible then hopefully you won't be hurt again because no one will even notice you exist. while i am a well-read and educated woman, i never put all this together in my own head until now.

the next two-three months are going to be QUITE demanding and painful for me. i have to essentially go back and relive the experience of my childhood molestation and attempted rape so i can feel the pain and grieve for what i lost in order to move forward. i'd rather gouge out my eye or suffer something physical then to endure the mental/emotional pain that i have to endure to get better. i can withstand physical pain far better than emotional pain for sure. i always have. there are no fucking shortcuts for this whatsoever.

a week ago friday, i had the worst panic attack yet. i felt like something inside me had splintered off. i couldn't focus, my heart beat erratically, & was terrified but couldn't tell you why. i wanted to disappear literally from the earth. i can only figure that the story i'd heard the night before in group therapy triggered something deep within my subconscious setting off my PTSD. i'll have to learn my triggers and try to avoid them or prepare myself to encounter them. i can now recollect when the PTSD started and see particular situations where the triggers set me off. if i had only known the symptoms, i could have figured it out and gotten help sooner.

when i go back on the 7th, i have to share my story with the group. i am not sure how i'm going to convey it yet. i think that is why i have isolated myself further because i know i'm going to have to bare everything to a group of people i hardly know in an effort to heal myself. UGH! nothing seems to comfort me. i just wish i had someone to hold me and let me just cry it all out, but i can't ask anyone to endure such because it's terrible enough for me to endure.

praying the new year will be SO much better for not only me but everyone because 2009 was a complete bust...a year i wish never happened.

A safe place to fall...

everyone needs one. i find it increasingly difficult to find such in the world today as people grow increasingly apathetic and selfish. most are unwilling to be even a bit vulnerable to help their fellow man, woman or child. what will become of us?

i believe that it will just get increasingly worse until it is literally every person for themselves and we kill each other off...like we are not doing that already... yet, inside me there is a bright light of determination and hope that says HELL NO! i won't give up and i can effect change in my own world even in seemingly insignificant ways.

it is no secret that i've been broken, hurt and thrown away like garbage more than once and mostly by men, but something inside me presses on with hope, light and positive that LOVE & Good will conquor evil. it is what i must believe in order to survive otherwise living each day is an exercise in futility.

why bother struggling to make it, take another breath or get up each day? we each must have something to strive for, a purpose in life, and a reason to live. i seek daily to discover what that is for me as it seems to change like sands shifting beneath my tired unsteady frame.

i don't have all the answers. i just know what works for me and what doesn't, mostly. i make it my business to be keenly self-aware in an effort to better myself and become more confident in who i am, what i believe and why i believe what i do. it's quite a challenge as i am ever changing with each passing moment. struggling to live in the moment, leave the past behind and not focus on the future so much that i forget to enjoy now.

each day brings new discovery of myself and those around me...those that intersect my world in the daily hussle. i am honored by those who choose to share their stories, lives and selves with me. i thank you all who entrust me with those pieces of yourselves. you may not realize how precious you are, but to me you are everything.