Sunday 22 May 2011

The wolf at the door.

I am only a smidgen of wanting away from climbing the fucking walls.
I feel the beginning of that old familiar ache, the wolf at the door.
Desire building.
As regular as fucking clockwork here I am again on the edge of consumption.
I ache.
I feel a hollowness inside me that wasn't there before.
A nervous energy tingling in my cunt and to the very end of my fingertips.
I am teetering on the edge of rage: irritable and anxious and frustrated.
Moody.
In fact, at times, a fucking horrible bitch.
In truth I want to cry as much as I want to fuck, but I don't do either.
I want to be silenced, I want pain to cancel out the wanting that's building within me.
I wish I could shut my fucking mouth.
I just want someone to hit me, hit me until this feeling goes away.
This old familiar ache, the wolf at the door.
It's relentless and mocking, and it leaves me hanging on the edge of despair.
Desperate.

Pitiful.
Yet too raw, too vulnerable to do anything about it but protest.
To ride out the discomfort till this feeling goes away.
I already know that tomorrow it will be stronger.
I'll want to scream as much as I want to fuck, but I'll do neither.
I'll want violence and cruelty, to be used and abused - even more than I want it today.
I'll want it all, till I can't take any more.
Till this feeling subsides,
this old familiar ache, the wolf at the door.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

The habit of a lifetime...

Emotional repression.
It's the habit of a lifetime.

So much so that I sometimes don't even make a conscious decision to do it. It's like an autopilot kicking in and taking charge, pushing feeling and emotion away.  Then it hits you out of the blue that there's this tidal wave of emotion hidden underneath the surface and you can't let it out, even though you want to.  The tears you need to cry get stuck behind your eyes.  Or you might even be able to begin to cry, but after just 2 tears your eyes are dry and mocking.  Your emotion sits there in the pit of your stomach and heavy in your chest, immovable.

Of course sometimes it is a conscious choice. I am well versed in the practise of keeping oneself numb, of running away from tears and emotion and pain.  I was taught that being upset was unacceptable.  Then pushing all feeling away became a way to cope when I was little and I didn't know what else to do and it stuck. The habit of a lifetime.  

It isn't so simple and easy as it sounds of course, the strain and effort of being numb leeches out into other ways to cope, other ways to feel.   I used to cut myself to let my feelings out, but I  haven't done that in over 10 years.  I channeled all my anxiety into food and sought refuge in obsession and restriction but I saw through that guise.  I learnt that repression long term is damaging and self destructive and I stopped hurting myself like that.

Over the years I have learnt so much, how to get it out by writing, how to talk to friends a little and I know that letting emotion out isn't unacceptable. Yet still I haven't been able to master the skill of just letting myself feel.  I know that's not so uncommon, when a big important crisis happens we all have our own kind of auto pilot.

I know now that play, being beaten would probably do me the world of good, because it would force the tears. But I won't play, I'm too raw and I might get too emotional, I don't even now what "too emotional" is. Perhaps it just means that they might glimpse more of my vulnerability than I could cope with. That it would mean opening myself up, and I need to be able to do that myself, in my own time, on my own terms.

I need to learn how to feel this without leaning on something else.  This week I have been pushing my feelings away, apart from 2-3 tears on Wednesday when I found out my mum has cancer, I haven't cried, and for the most part I haven't felt very much, just the pressure building, the feeling of stress.  The tears behind my eyes sometimes and well of emotion when I am walking to work and this morning on this train where I am writing this.

Today I have decided I need to let it out, not now of course, I don't do public emotional displays, but maybe later. That's the plan anyway.  As absurd as that might sound, how controlled and calculating it may be.  I don't know how else to approach it, just trying to let it happen doesn't usually work.  Though sometime the damn breaks unexpectedly and it spills out and it will come, I know it will eventually, because in truth I am so full of fear and grief that I can't hold it in much longer.  I'm just ready now, to try and let it out, I don't want to run away from it anymore.  That itself is a huge step, that in itself is another step towards changing me, changing this, my habit of a lifetime.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

The big C

Three years ago, just after I lost my sister I told the universe, "that's it now, don't let anyone else in my family get cancer, that's enough".   The idea of going through that ever again was horrific.

So I said that out into the ether and despite not really believing in anything, I hoped.

Of course life doesn't work like that.  Today my mum told me she has breast cancer and as soon as she said she had to go to the hospital today I knew.  That dread griping hold of my stomach and my heart, while I waited for the word to be spoken.  Only a small lump she said, she wasn't worrying she said, in a voice shaky and as fragile as I have ever heard her.  I won't worry I said, when I managed more than a one word reply, cold chill on my back, voice forced into cheeriness.  Too cheery, no doubt it was as obvious to her that I would worry, as it was to me that so would she. 

I stayed at work, no point at all in coming home and doing nothing.  A bit of deep breathing, sucking in my feelings and pushing them out as air to float away.  Plus some internally spoken “keep it together”s.  I spent the afternoon trying to concentrate, trying to remind myself how treatable breast cancer is, how it's all going to be fine, of all the people I know who have faced this and are doing so well.  Of course your head likes to slip in the what if's, the worst case scenarios, likes to remind you of the last time.  Of what cancer has already taken away. 

I want to run away to a dark room and cry, but I don't.  I shed a few tears with my head in my hands in the disabled toilet and then I pull myself together.  I go back to work and I smile and I chat on the phone, voice forced into cheeriness, just that little bit too cheery.  Especially when I speak to my sister, who is numb.  I want to be numb, I pretty much am.

After work I go and spend some time with a friend, she know's where I am, she lost her mum to cancer 10 years ago. She reminds me how treatable breast cancer is, how it's all going to be fine.  We talk about the people we know who have faced this and are doing so well.  I tell her how I don't know what to do, that my colleague asking me if I was going to do things I hadn't even thought of made me feel like I was doing this wrong.

Then an update from my sister, she sounds too cheery too.  They said my mum should still go on holiday next week, and come back to more tests results (they are not sure about the lymphoids) and an operation.  No mention of chemo or radiotherapy yet.  I think that sounds hopeful, that they don't feel they need to offer chemo before, that they are sending her on holiday.  I am basing this on my previous experience with this disease, but then my sisters cancer was rare and aggressive, and I suspected from what they were throwing at it, that it wasn't so hopeful.  But the google searches about breast cancer are so much more positive than the last time.  This is just a little lump that they are just going to whip out and then it will be gone, it will all be fine.    Of course my head likes to slip in the what if's, the worst case scenarios, likes to remind me of the last time.  Of what cancer has already taken away. 

I haven't cried again yet, I am holding back the fear and the grief and the crushing devastation.  I don't want to feel it yet. I almost feel I shouldn't be like this, because this it just a little lump and it will be fine, it has to be fine.  I feel overdramatic and silly, because I am getting myself so worked up (well I would be if I let it out) and that feels inappropriate when some people have to deal with rare and aggressive cancer like my sister had, that isn't as treatable as this.  I feel like I am overreacting some how.   It's just a little lump.

So I'll try not to worry, I'll be positive, I'll try not to think about the last time and what cancer has already taken away and with everything I am I'll hope.