AN EMOTIONAL CUTTER'S LIFE - PART I

My mother used to tell me that I was so shy when I was a little girl that I would cry if a stranger would look at me. I really can't imagine living a life where I felt like that, but lucky for me, I have no conscious memories of being that way or feeling that way. I eventually blossomed when I started school. I discovered I had a mouth. The gift of gab was magically bestowed upon me and I transformed into a storyteller and the class clown all rolled into one lanky-legged little girl. 

My safe place growing up was never at "home."  My safe place was in an imaginary world I had created in my bedroom where I could transport myself to other realms and be other people or things. It was easy! I'd just open the door to my pink wooden closet on wheels, carefully push the buttons I had drawn on the inside of the wooden door, climb inside the closet, shut the door and transport myself somewhere else. Then, instantly off I'd go on my merry way. It was like reading a book, but only better until my mother would holler for me or at me...and out of the pink closet on wheels I would come. Blasted back to reality with a thud, I would jump out of the closet with a half-glazed look on my face. Undoubtedly, I had done something wrong...yet again! I would sigh and trudge my way downstairs to find out what I had done wrong this time and suffer the consequences.

I can't say I really know what love is because it's not something I've ever received in abundance. That's not being said from a place of self-pity, but it's a statement of fact pure and simple. My childhood was no better or worse than many girls or boys who grow up in alcoholic families. I struggled from having a distorted self-image that continually convinced me how ugly I was coupled with the negativity that was always shouting at me telling me I wasn't worthy of being loved. I was awkward. I felt stupid and I just wanted to be one of those pretty girls. My self-image was reinforced by how I was treated by my family. My mother never took me under her wing and molded me into a "girlie girl."  Isn't that what a mother should do with her only daughter? For Christ sake, my daughter is a princess. She's beautiful in every way and has always been since the day she was born. When I was growing up, my mother wouldn't dream of leaving the house unless she was dressed to the nines. Me? Not so much! I was the rebel. Go figure! I became a hippie. No make-up. No frills. I was tall and skinny. A pair of jeans and bare feet were great in my eyes. I always told people I had natural beauty and didn't need anything to enhance myself. Some people actually bought that bullshit! Now, I jokingly tell them it's a handicap to be beautiful. I think perhaps, that may be the truth.

I've always wondered what it would feel like to be able to look in the mirror and like what you see or at least be okay with what you see. I've never been okay with what I see. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying I'm completely fugly, but what I see and what other people see are two entirely different things. AND then there's the matter of what's on the inside. OMG! That shit is scary! That's the kind of shit that makes people nutty. "We" have to keep that shit in a locked drawer NEVER to see the light of day. 

One of the worst things my mother ever did to me was when she got it in her head how darling I would look with a Twiggy haircut and she made me get my hair cut like that. I was 11. Puberty hadn't quite hit yet.  I already was shaped like a boy.  What she did gave me the kiss of death. It was horrible and I had absolutely no say in the matter. I was so traumatized. It was truly awful. I know! I know! Suck it up! Right? But when you're young stuff like that matters. Stuff like not being listened to matters. Not having anyone to talk to matters. Looking like a boy when you're a girl MATTERS. I wanted to be cute and I wasn't. If my mother had been kind, she would have featured her tall daughter as a model and made her feel beautiful instead of awkward and homely. She should have slapped some make-up on me and enhanced some of my features and then turned my face towards the mirror and told me that I'm beautiful. That never happened and I often wonder why she never attempted to let me know I wasn't ugly. Did she not know how I felt? Couldn't she see it?  All the while this minor bullshit and pre-teen angst was happening, I was struggling dealing with sexual abuse. So I suffered in silence. The ugly duckling waiting to become a swan suffered in silence. It was my self-imposed prison for which the sentence was indefinite.

This was in a time when NO ONE talked about stuff like that. Yes, sexual abuse happened back then. It's always happened and unfortunately, will continue to happen. On some level, I instinctively knew I needed to just keep it to myself and "protect" the person. So, I sacrificed myself to protect someone else who didn't deserve protection or my loyalty. But why did I do that? If this makes any sense...although I feared and hated what the person was doing to me and yes, I also hated that person, but on the other hand, I also loved that person. I was just a child and I was torn.  My loyalties were torn. I was so confused.  I didn't have anyone to talk to and even if I did, what exactly do you say? How do you slip something like that into a conversation when you don't really understand what's happening or why it's happening. OMG! That child inside me still cries at times! Sometimes, I lay awake at night and I get flashes of old memories and feelings. That little girl still lives and she has lived a war-torn life. The battle scars may not be visible to the naked eye, but they do exist. When I look in the mirror I see the scars. When I look in the mirror I feel the scars and when I close my eyes I feel the fear.

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE - PART I

To say I was a troubled teenager would be a severe understatement. When I was 18, after spending two long years in drug rehab (Kinsman Hall), I was finally released two days before Christmas. Was I excited? Yes! I was filled with what I thought were endless possibilities. But I was more afraid than I was excited. Those two years kept me alive, but it did little else. When I hit the streets, I was armed with absolutely no tools for a drug-free and drama-free existence. How can anyone cope when they're left up to the their own faulty devices? Two years of not having to think for myself weighed heavily on me especially when I was suddenly faced with a real life filled with real problems and real decisions to make everyday. 

Towards the end of my two years at Kinsman Hall, I got involved with a staff member who was about ten years older than me. Oh, we had big plans of living happily ever after, but that happily ever after never happened. Bruce left the program a few months after my departure. The plan was for him to come get me in Florida and we'd start our life together. He got as far as New York where he was from and never made it any further. Denial works great for awhile and then reality sets in...Bruce and I were never going to have anything, but some sheltered memories of a relationship that was never put to the test of surviving in a life away from Kinsman Hall. I knew I made the wrong choice by getting involved with Bruce to begin with and instead of choosing with my heart, I chose with my head.  If I had chosen with my heart months earlier Bruce wouldn't have been in the picture.

Shortly after my departure, life slapped me in the face twice. The ferocity of the slap left me questioning everything I thought I knew. First, I lost my closest friend, Charlene. When she left rehab, she started shooting dope again. Although I knew what the writing on the wall predicted, I wasn't prepared to deal with a death...any death. Charlene died a week before her wedding. As Bruce broke the news of Charlene's death to me, I felt as if someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out. I could barely breathe. I could barely think. Yet with as raw as my emotions were I couldn't seem to cry. I just teetered on the edge.  I just wanted the hurt to go away, but before my wound could form a scab, I found out Bruce had started using again. He, too was shooting dope, but was lying to me about it. 

Another one bites the dust! There wasn't going to be any happily ever after for us. Drugs had won out again, so I tucked my tail between my legs and went off to lick my wounds. All I wanted to do and felt like I needed to do was insulate myself so no bad news could affect me again. Instead of tuning in, turning on and dropping out, I tuned out, turned off and then jumped into emotional obscurity. My first instinct was to hide and to fade far enough away so pain couldn't find me. I adopted a true fuck it attitude. What's the point of getting close to anyone when all they're going to do is break my heart? 

That summer was a memorable one. It changed my whole trajectory.  After being away from my hometown for 3 years, I foolishly returned. My first year of faux emancipation, I spent living on the streets. I was 15 and got one hell of an education. The next two years I spent in drug rehab. Oops! That was a completely unplanned detour.  I was probated there until I turned 18.  I knew going "home" would put me in harm's way, but I went home anyway because like a person who needs to physically cut themselves repeatedly, I was an emotional cutter. I needed to beat myself up until the pain subsided and I was comfortably and completely numb. I thought about returning to the drug rehab from which I had just been released because I felt I had unfinished business there but I didn't return for fear of rejection. Fear paralyzed me until it won and I too started getting high again.

OUT OF THE FISHBOWL

There's no place like home!!! But what if home is filled with ghosts and horrible memories? Or what if home is a safety net keeping a person from going out in the world and spreading their wings? We all tend to idealize things, especially when things are remembered through the eyes of a child, but for me, my younger years hold no such ideals. I left home many, many years ago because my only real choices were to leave and live or to stay and die.  I chose life! I really never wanted to return again and stayed away for over 20 years. After being out in the world, the more I saw and learned, the pain became dull and the wounds healed leaving minimal scars.  Home was just that and although it was far from being perfect, it definitely was one of the biggest factors of what has made me who I am today. 

When I left home, I immediately suffered from severe culture shock.  Moving from New England to the South was like moving to another planet.  Now many years later after blending into my environment here on The Redneck Riviera, I still feel like a fish out of water.  It seems I always gravitate towards people from the North....why? Some unknown, unnamed force draws me to them. It's not that I feel they are better in any way.  It just seems that the same roots that make me who I am seems to run in their blood also.  We share unspoken truths and common ground.  We share a common outlook on life for the most part.  Leaving home not only gave me a chance for survival, but it helped mend the wounds that would have never healed by staying. Distance  gave me a chance to develop a deep appreciation of the place I was born and raised and of the people who really are my kindred spirits. 

Comments:

William
DECEMBER 20, 2004 AT 6:42 AM EDIT
Know how you feel about transplantation and being out of place. I live in Missouri, and the family loves to go to Branson for vacation. It’s like Vegas, but with Jesus.