the least of my worries

My most vivid memories of being a child consist of me, balled up on my bed, sobbing with my guts, while the words “No one understands me,” scrolling, scrolling through my brain. The only notable difference in any of the memories is the color of the gingham-checked bedspreads I always had– the ones with the lace runners sewn down the edges of where the spread falls over the sides of the bed. I suppose my internal dialogue has always just been true, and rather a remarkable show of self-knowledge for such a young child. I am not a child now, and yet this is still my story.

Now, as the adult-child amalgam I have become, I know why this is just true. Nothing about my life as a child, or now as the adulter me, is very relatable. How could anyone understand the powerful combination of me, growing up with my own father licking my tiny, toddler vagina, jerking off on me, and I don’t know what else, and the single mother of an autistic boy me, who oftentimes doesn’t have enough left to give to another after an ordinary day. Both very specific and difficult paths to walk, and added together, a strange mixture of vulnerability, hopeful pride, fear, and uncertainty.

I find that being me is eternally exhausting. Trying to soften those self-defense mechanisms that helped me survive my childhood while facing new day after new day of blending my own fledgling happiness with my son’s constant needs and wants is daunting. Having an autistic child is a weird world of balancing his need of micromanaging and his need for autonomy in an overwhelming world. I have worked smart his whole life to make society fit around him, to show people that while autism is different, it isn’t scary. Autism just is. And, honestly, I hope I have demonstrated to the people that we all are different and none of us are scary. We just are. This is part of my everyday life, and it takes brain energy and emotional energy. I am functioning with a rather serious deficit of both, resulting in my jaggedy edges and some-encompassing fear of everything skewing my perceptions and robbing me of feeling safe and peaceful. Most days, I am so tensed up that my neck is barely visible and I am on guard against anything, all things.

Sometimes, I check out of whole conversations with people. I snap on my autopilot, seamlessly. The results of this trick vary. Turns out, my autopilot is manned by the parts inside of me that always tried to protect me from abuse. My pilots are judgement all, very. My pilots have seen and felt the worst possible betrayal, the most heinous acts wrought upon a child, upon me. They try to keep everyone out because how could they know who to trust? They could not trust my own father, so, of course, everyone is suspect.

The pilots don’t have any basis for understanding what a healthy relationship looks like, what it is, how it works. They don’t know anything about intimacy. They have little patience for hearing stories of regular, normal problems. After all, once you have been in hell, everything else is New Hampshire on a sunny day. And I get that. The defense mechs were totally awesome and entirely helpful for many, many years. I did survive the thing and do extremely well at school, I believe I faked normalcy for quite a while. And then the pilots and their mechs were drowned in alcohol for a decade, so it wasn’t a problem then, so to speak. I believe after sobriety came to me the trouble started. Sobriety is hard, as it turns out. feelings emerge. Actual, human feelings. They are everywhere, these human feelings. Flailing and wailing to be heard and felt.

Fuck, it is so exhausting never feeling safe. I never feel safe. Ever. I am never relaxed, never at ease. I am so tired.

I dislike the word unspeakable. I have been unspeakably defiled, abused, mistreated, demoralized, fucked up. But it must be spoken. I must speak of that which is unspeakable. I can’t think of another way to exorcize my demonage. I must find words for that which has no possible descriptors. Or at least try. Suffering with the unspeakable takes away my power. I need my power. I need to have some power. For possibly the first time in my life. I was strong to have borne the damages, to have survived, but I am not being strong now. I will be strong to overcome. When I overcome.

I never feel safe. Not even when I am home alone. Perhaps even less so then. I feel like I am at high alert. That danger is imminent. Life or death stuff. I mean, really, when I was a small, small, tiny child, I did die, in a very real way. Buried alive. And I didn’t have the tools then. Nor do I now. I feel like I have to cobble together some sort of strategic weaponry to protect myself. To fight back. To dig myself from this grave of fear, supreme anxiety, these heightened senses. Maybe I need an additional sense. A sixth. Or a hatchet. Or coping skills. No, not coping skills. I can and do cope. I muddle through. I white-knuckle my way through every minute of every day.

I don’t know how to get out. And I can’t stay in. I was doing well for a while after therapy. But, I swear, there is something about this time of year that always worsens everything.

There are times when I do feel safe, I think. When I am with Rob, when he is home or we are out doing stuff. Maybe because I am the protector. I am the provider, of comfort, of strength, of know-how. I am his guide. I get that I could become those things for myself. I believe that is possible. Probably, others of us are in fact in charge of their own lives. They seem to be. Out there in the world, accomplishing, contributing, thriving. Not living inside the grave of terror.

My son. He laughs through 75% of his days. He finds the joy, he feels the joy. It has never occurred to him that he isn’t entirely worthy of joy. He goes after joy. He grabs the joy, for himself. He deserves it, he wants it, he gets it. I admire him so much. He is never afraid. He is he.

And I am I. And I don’t have even the beginnings of an idea of what the fuck that means. I was never able to develop as me. I have no memory of some former glory. Of a time I was grateful for who I am. It’s not enough that I am funny. That on a good day I can string together some decent sentences or create photo art. That I make people laugh, lighten their loads, wear cute outfits. I can name a hundred good things about me, but I do not internally feel any of them. Epidermal goodness.

How is it I have lived 43 years as an unperson? I suppose that can’t be helped now. The other night, as I was giving in to that fitful sleep, I directed my thinking from the past doesn’t matter; what matters is now and from now on. But that didn’t feel right. I realized: what matters is now. Now. Only now. How do I separate who I am because of my past from just plain old who I am right now? Because, who am I right now? I can sort out and identify those parts- the funny, the cute, the genius, the nurturing mom, so on, so forth. But I cannot make a whole from the sum of my parts. How do I do that?

If I could just know, know to my bones, know in my flesh, my innards, my brain, my heart, my toes. If I could just fucking know I am worthy. That I am safe. I just want to be worthy enough to feel safe. I want to experience minutes at a time where my heart isn’t racing, where I am not poised to defend my life. I want to sleep without the dreams. Wake without the flashbacks. Wipe it all off. The grave dirt. The fear rubble. The terror particulates.

All I really know is that this must not be unspeakable. And however I go about the knowing of me, I must allow the goodness to permeate my human outer coating. I want to feel what I know. And say it. And just fucking say it.

When you leave me here all alone, unprotected, unaccounted for, unmissed, dismissed, tossed aside, chucked, all loose ends and flailing heartstrings, I begin to forget how to breathe. I forget how to breathe, how to make a fist, how to stop my heart pounding the dizziness into my head. I forget that I am here, that I exist, that I am important, that I have a quality about that many people find pleasing. That there is pleasure. I forget how to fold the washed clothes and put them in those drawers. I forget to eat the bits of low-carb, low-cal crackers that I sprinkle just a hint of shreddy cheese on, just enough to cover the cracker edge to edge. I forget that there are people outside, living, doing things, learning, growing, grumping at poor drivers, feeling the warm autumn sun shoot straight into their hair. I forget to shower. I forget I am pretty and am often presentable enough to be one outside, finding the joy in the feelings of things learned and sunshine and poor drivers.

I forget I have bones in my body. I feel like a damp old scrap of one of my Polly Flinders fancy dress my mother turned into a dust rag. The dampness is the lemony-freshness of Pledge which gathered the particles of dead skin and hair bits into the pores of the poly-cotton blend of the frilly plaid dress-skirt. While the citrus smell cheers me a bit, putting me in the mind of never contracting scurvy, I am still a limp, wet dress sleeve, crusted with pieces of flaked-off mauve nail polish.

I wish I had my bones back. I feel like I remember that I liked them. I recall nibbling at the cheesy crackers, finding the place where the socks go to rest, all snuggly enfolded with their perfect partner. I haven’t always been misplaced. Ignored. Un-shone-upon. I have felt the glow of you near me. I saw you slightly nodding a smidge of approval in my direction.

Deep down in my soul are deep dark secrets. I would tell them, but I wouldn’t be believed. Or validated. So the secrets grow, with mold and moss, until the dankness odorates my very soul. I am allergic to basements. My deep down dark dank basement full of secrets.

Tangled in the moss are my dreams and hopes and wishes and wants. My real me. A closet full of beautiful (in that so-ugly-they-can’t-help but-be beautiful) shoes. And special pens. And a hat for every occasion. And my one, true love. And my little house by the creek that smells like home and macaroni and cheese sprinkled with pepper. Endless colors of bold, but not neon, nail polish. Hairbrushes. Ribbons and bows. Delicate gloves. Fancy topcoats. And green green grass with no weeds. The sun. An iPhone. My Honda Fit, glossy with wax. A fountain of Crystal Light Pomegranate Cherry that will never stain any of my clothes or topcoats. Wild birds and wildflowers. Cameras, everywhere. And laptops, as far as the eye can see, all with brand-new, authorized versions of Photoshop. Soft trinkling fountains, little frogs. Ivy-covered bricks from my grandpa’s cellar. A pink law mower. A pink kayak. A pink Swatch watch. And socks!

Sometimes, even though touching wet, stinky moss totally grosses me out, I glump some of it off of the secrets and fling it out into the woods next-door, where the slithery snakes and mosquitoes live. I get the willies, for sure, but the willies don’t last as long as they used to last.

Sometimes, I take reprieve by shutting the basement door. It takes all of my strength to shut that door, but I can breathe and be and feel things then, when it is shut. But sometimes the door unshuts itself, when the secrets gurgle and percolate and scream out to be heard.

They want to be heard right now. They are extra dark and dank and moldy and mossy. I can barely see the nail polish. I am sneezy and my eyes want to close. To sleep, I think. To get away from my internal, infernal basement. I am so tired. Shut, unshut. Wishes hopes glumpy moss slithery snakes house by the creek evil goodness.

Mosquitoes. Hairbrushes.