I try to remain calm, but over the past few days my anxiety has reached fever pitch. I do not sleep but toss and turn almost the entire night. Last night I downed several glasses of red wine. That along with the exhaustion that my body felt, I fell into a deep sleep. Although it did not last the entire night, it was enough for me to function productively throughout the day. I am used to it now. I have to learn to calm my body for sleep; once school starts, I will be on a very short leash.
I search for answers to my issues: my inability to sleep at night, my feelings of not being good enough, the scorching pain in my heart that even the powerful love of my husband has not been able to heal and now I believe that I have stumbled upon one of the answers I seek.
I have to learn to love myself. Not in an extreme selfish way, but in a way that allows me to take the time I need to nurture myself. Taking the time to rest my body and mind, taking the time to give myself what I need to eventually become a complete person, and taking the time to learn what that is. I am always on the run; many tell me that they don't know how I keep the pace I do, but I do.
As a child, it was understood that I must always give up anything that I had for the benefit of the family. But one summer when I was about sixteen, a friend of mine and I hopped into the car and spent the day in New York. We saw a Broadway show and later the show at Radio City Music Hall. We were enthralled with the bright lights of the big city, and I knew that one day I would make it my home. On my return, my mother ranted and raved that if anyone (who might that be) had anything, any money they were keeping to themselves, they had better, "get up off it." I was to regret taking some of my hard earned money and spending it on myself, rather than having it taken away as was usually the case. I felt guilty for the joy I felt that day. Guilty that I was selfish enough to think of myself. After that, it became easy to put others in front. And I have been doing it for the past thirty years.
Now I know it is crucial to my healing. Taking care of me for me. It is only the beginning in the process. Learning to love me.
Showing posts with label self esteem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self esteem. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
You Must Remember This........
It is odd how we each remember experiences from our youth. That is a strange word for me to use because I never felt as if I had one. "Youth" is a word associated with purity of home and spirit, and I am certain that those articles never existed in the houses where I grew up.
My memories of my "youth" center on a succession of houses, and apartments, (not homes) steeped in ceaseless turmoil. There was never enough of anything except turmoil and one could only expect more of the same. Hope was something that there was no room for because we were taught that it did not exist. It was fair to say that one could only anticipate doom for it was a sure thing. That being said, someone had to be made responsible for the serious lack that dominated our lives, and that culprit, as I was to hear repeated for my entire "youth", was my father.
In addition to the serious lack, there was a mighty foe that my mother felt that she had to battle against day and night and that was what she believed to be my nymphomaniac tendencies. Even though I was only four the first time I remember her calling me a slut, she was quite diligent in her attempts to beat it out of me. And beat she did. She did it so well and often that she actually elevated it to an art form. By the time I was ten, I knew what to expect so that when I did get my period, I didn't tell her for fear of being beaten. When she did discover it, I was told that I was to get it every month and if I didn't, it meant that I was pregnant, and then she would kill me.
I did have one bright spot in my life, and that was when my mother had safely boarded the bus to New York to gamble at the OTB. I knew that for at least one, two or possibly three weeks, she would be gone. There would be hell to pay when she returned, but the important thing was that she was not there. In her absence, my grandmother, (her mother) took charge. It was her job to hold down the fort until she returned. My grandmother was considered a saint, mainly because the monthly checks she had went to feed us and nothing was ever kept back for her. I didn't know it then, but she was abused by my mother in much the same way I was. Her life was spent doing a chore that I am sure she detested in return for a flimsy roof over her head. When she died, she was very old, and she barely got a hole in the ground.
My mother remembers life differently. She remember putting my brothers and I in the best schools. She remembers working tirelessly to teach us how to be good upright citizens. She remembers sacrificing for us, and even consulting with priests and professors to help get my brother in the right university. She remembers tolerating my father's drunken antics and keeping a home clean and full of plenty. She doesn't remember battering me almost every day of my life until I left her house for good. She does not speak of the years she spent traveling on the bus back and forth to New York, the years she spent gambling; the babysitting money, the paper route money, the Girl Scout cookie money that went missing.
But I remember. My soul remembers the fear, my body the searing pain. And it is because of her absolute denial that I will always remember and never forgive. In honor of my survival, I remember. In honor of my survival, I write. In honor of my survival, I try each day to love my daughter a little bit more. I must remember this.
My memories of my "youth" center on a succession of houses, and apartments, (not homes) steeped in ceaseless turmoil. There was never enough of anything except turmoil and one could only expect more of the same. Hope was something that there was no room for because we were taught that it did not exist. It was fair to say that one could only anticipate doom for it was a sure thing. That being said, someone had to be made responsible for the serious lack that dominated our lives, and that culprit, as I was to hear repeated for my entire "youth", was my father.
In addition to the serious lack, there was a mighty foe that my mother felt that she had to battle against day and night and that was what she believed to be my nymphomaniac tendencies. Even though I was only four the first time I remember her calling me a slut, she was quite diligent in her attempts to beat it out of me. And beat she did. She did it so well and often that she actually elevated it to an art form. By the time I was ten, I knew what to expect so that when I did get my period, I didn't tell her for fear of being beaten. When she did discover it, I was told that I was to get it every month and if I didn't, it meant that I was pregnant, and then she would kill me.
I did have one bright spot in my life, and that was when my mother had safely boarded the bus to New York to gamble at the OTB. I knew that for at least one, two or possibly three weeks, she would be gone. There would be hell to pay when she returned, but the important thing was that she was not there. In her absence, my grandmother, (her mother) took charge. It was her job to hold down the fort until she returned. My grandmother was considered a saint, mainly because the monthly checks she had went to feed us and nothing was ever kept back for her. I didn't know it then, but she was abused by my mother in much the same way I was. Her life was spent doing a chore that I am sure she detested in return for a flimsy roof over her head. When she died, she was very old, and she barely got a hole in the ground.
My mother remembers life differently. She remember putting my brothers and I in the best schools. She remembers working tirelessly to teach us how to be good upright citizens. She remembers sacrificing for us, and even consulting with priests and professors to help get my brother in the right university. She remembers tolerating my father's drunken antics and keeping a home clean and full of plenty. She doesn't remember battering me almost every day of my life until I left her house for good. She does not speak of the years she spent traveling on the bus back and forth to New York, the years she spent gambling; the babysitting money, the paper route money, the Girl Scout cookie money that went missing.
But I remember. My soul remembers the fear, my body the searing pain. And it is because of her absolute denial that I will always remember and never forgive. In honor of my survival, I remember. In honor of my survival, I write. In honor of my survival, I try each day to love my daughter a little bit more. I must remember this.
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