Breaking down

Trigger warning: This one's very personal. I talk about my mental state and the hurt I felt today. I discuss depression a little, and go back into the pain I feel over being disowned. It's not a constant pain, in fact it's a pretty rare occurrence; but if my talking about it, or my breaking down over it is too hard, please skip this one.
 
Last few days I've been not all there. I have that weird fuzzy feeling that I get before I have a depressive episode. I've been dealing with rising anxiety, although there's no good reason for it. It's a normal state of my brain when the episode is coming. What's missing, though is the deepening sadness, the fog of sorrow, the eerie loneliness.

I haven't felt sad at all! I've been really excited, actually. It's a state I'm not accustomed to, because I tend to be pretty calm. While the kids have been settling into their new schedule, I've been preparing myself for this year's NaNoWriMo. I did it last year and had a riot, but worried myself literally sick-- so I'm planning ahead a little more. No, I won't write anything, but I've been working on the cast, and next month I'll refine the outline of the story, so by November 1, I'll be ready to start banging out my story. I'll write more about it later.

I thought I was just over tired. I haven't been sleeping well this week. It happens when my schedule changes, and I get worried that I'll over sleep, or not hear the alarm, or something. So when I felt cranky the other night, I tried not to be petulant. I failed when I totally fucked up dinner and felt like a moron. But shit happens, and after some sleep I wasn't so hard on myself.

Then today I was sitting here at my trusty desk reading the news and thinking over the itty-bitty list I have for the store today (Kitty litter; graphing paper; folder dividers; fruit... anything else? Am I sure?); I decided to break out the Sonata Arctica albums that have been gathering dust on my hard drive. I love these guys, they're amazing!

They pour so much emotion into their music; some will make you mad, others will tear your heart out. Mix in the throbbing guitars and drums that make my desk rattle, and I'm a happy girl.

At least until this morning...

On the For the Sake of Revenge album, there's a song called Victoria's Secret. No, it's not about underpants and over-priced bras. It's about running away from pain and dark into a new life.

The chorus:
Dancing on the path and singing now you got away.
You can reach the goals that you have set from now on , every day.
There is no way you would go back now, oh no, those days are past.
Life is waiting for the one who loves to live, and it is not a secret... *

I have loved this song since the first time I heard it, around 2007. I'm not ashamed to say I will crank up the volume and sing along with this one (amongst others-- I wont' lie, I sing along with most of my stuff as long as no one can hear me). Today, though, I lost it. I broke down and sobbed like a baby.

Why? I've never had this reaction to this song before.

Because I was reminded that I'd run away, I'd escaped from the darkness and pain my mother put me through. Because although I know she can't hurt me any more, I know she threw me away, and that really fucking hurts some times. Admittedly some times, I can laugh about it. But today, today it hurt like a vivisection-- like I had opened my ribs and ripped out my own heart, just to see what it did.

So, I  sat here, and cried.

I cried for the hurt of being thrown away.
I cried for the anger I still feel toward her some times.
I wanted to shout "Fuck you!" to her and everyone like her.
I wanted to ask, "Why did you throw me away?! Why wasn't I good enough? Why in the fuck did I have to run away from you to have a life of my own?!"

Mostly though, I just cried.

I'm a pretty soft touch. I don't mind admitting it. I get teary over baby bats eating banana and learning how to fly; I tear up when my youngest son tells me I'm his Super-Mom, superhero. I cry my eyes out watching the "It Gets Better" Project videos. don't let go and cry when I'm sad, though. Music, especially, touches me deeply and I embrace the tears of joy that a beautiful song wrings from me. They slide down my face in silence, needing no acknowledgement, just there, one sign of my ecstasy.

Rarely will I cry for myself, though. I never got the point of it, although I probably should cry for myself. Everyone needs to let shit out, and yet knowing this, I still don't cry about bad shit. I just don't.

I'm not the kind of depressive who cries when she's sad. I get numb about my own feelings, because it's easier that way, but I sure as hell can't cry them out. I wish I could, I'd probably feel better, sooner. I was pretty shocked at myself for just losing it like I did. I just don't do that!

I let it out in huge, heaving sobs. I cried with big shuddering gasps, shoulders shaking, hands over my eyes catching my hot tears. Afterwards I washed my face and felt like I'd let down a huge burden on my shoulders. I said to myself, "I need to do this more often."

Then I thought, what the hell brought that on! This week has been fantastic! The kids are off to school, and so far, so good. My beloved husband has an interview for a promotion at work (crossed fingers, but no held breath-- have to be pragmatic because this position is corporate-wide, and he's got a lot of people to beat... but I think he can totally handle it! He's awesome!) Anyway, fan-wife aside, this week has been good.

My best friend started his new job. Another friend has had some personal breakthroughs and isn't so anxious about getting some help to get out of the bad situation he's in. I actually put together a comedy pitch for my book, for crying out loud. Comedy! Me! It's a rare thing, and I'm sure it'll be a lot of dry, gallows humour, but, I'm excited. Shit, I even got a date for Borderlands 2 release (By all that's holy, please Gearbox, take my money!!!Don't make me beg like Runic is, I just can't take it any more!) !**This week has been wonderful! It's not very often that I think of a weeks' worth of time in terms of exclamation points, but this one has a handful.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that even if everything has been, and is, good, I still have some really shitty things in my past to get through. Some of them will be easy, and some will be hard. Some will be a one-time breakthrough, and others will grow back on me, needing to be cut down and ripped out every so often. This thing with my mother disowning me is one of the latter, and I think that's OK. I have healed a lot of the harm she inflected, but some of it's deeper, and I guess I should expect that.

If I can feel music deeply enough to weep with joy...
If I can feel empathy deeply enough to feel elation across the country at the birth of a new baby or new jobs, showing art at new galleries, standing up for themselves...
If I can feel the hurt and love and joy and sorrow of my friends and loved ones, just as if it were my own, and  be more than OK with that... I seek it out! I want to be there, in every way I can be.

Then I guess it stands to reason that I'd have a deep enough well of emotion to have some bad ones stuffed down.

So this blog was a rather poor attempt at more purging. I need to accept that I still feel hurt, and that's OK. I need to accept that some days, something will set me off and I will hate her. I will hate everything she is, has done, and will do. Some days I won't feel anything for her at all other than "uh, another human". That's OK too.

But when I'm hurt, it's more than acceptable to let it out. Even if letting it out makes me cry a puddle on my desk. No one will judge me over it. No one will tell me to shut up, or get over it, or deal...

And if they do, then I have the same thing to tell them that I've told my peanut-gallery and metaphorically have told my mother:

No one asked you, so fuck off! If I want your opinion, I'll ask; however since I didn't ask, piss off motherfucker!***

Some day I'll have worked through all of this. But until then, I need to give myself space to be a real, authentic person. People hurt sometimes... Today, though, I don't hurt any more. I cried it out.


*(c)2002 Sonata Arctica. Written by T. Kakko, arranged by the band. Originally appeared on Winter Heart's Guild 2003-- and all this information I got from their website. If you want to hear the sing that set me off, it's available on their website.

**Gamer confession time. I've waited excitedly for Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2 and the cash to pick up The Old Republic. Those are the three games I really, really, really, really want this year. The release date for Borderlands 2 is set to be September 18. Torchlight 2 is still "summer 2012" and I'm despairing!!

**As an aside:
Isn't that odd Google's blogger wants to correct motherfucker to "cocksucker"... I could never insult someone by calling them a cocksucker... cocksucking is an art, and so that's a compliment! It's like insulting someone by calling them a cunt. Cunts are pretty...

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