4 Years

Today I realized, with surprising pain, that it's been 4 years.

4 years since he kissed me. 4 years since my battle with boys started and the abuse ensued at hands not of my family. 4 years since I realized that G-d wouldn't save me from everything the way I thought He would.

Today, of all days, it hit me with the force that it had when it first happened. It hit me like a head-on collision with a train. Like one thousand anvils crushing me from all directions. Like the weight of the world is sitting on my rib cage, keeping me from taking any more breaths, yet I am forced to keep going. Forced to keep breathing, and living, and surviving. Forced to continue on in this world when nobody cares. Nobody gives a flying f#ck if I were to wake up each day.

Still, I wake up. Day after day I show up to younglife, to work, to bible study, and to my other obligations. I show up for people who don't care. People who wouldn't notice if I were never to show up again. I show up for people who have hundreds of other people that they could lean on, should lean on, because it's an inconvenience for them to meet with me. I'm a hassle, an inconvenience, and a thorn.

4 years ago, my world was shattered. It began a path of my delusions being stripped away, my hope in a better life being crushed, and my desire for a husband and a family began to fade. Slowly, these hopes and dreams became painful wounds, scars to be reopened hundreds of times since. I discovered that I don't matter. My boundaries, my voice, my wants, and my "no" doesn't matter. I realized that my feeble support system was incapable of seeing me through the realness of life.

It came to my attention that life isn't a love story, it's not some great romance. Life, maybe not yours but mine, is not some fairy tale. My life is simply something to be survived. There is no knight in shining armor. G-d won't protect me from the evil in this world. I can't find happiness, despite trying everything everyone and my counselor has suggested. My life isn't supposed to be one of the top 5, I'm not supposed to be important, and my deepest desires to know people and to be known, won't be realized.

Happy endings are for other people. Love is for other people. Miracles that show them day after day that G-d saves them, is for other people. My life is about the realization that tragedies lie around every corner. That loneliness won't kill you with any type of speed, and that major depression is a lifelong fight that nobody will show up to help you defeat. My life is about showing grace and forgiveness to others, but being constantly beat down. My life is about learning to deal with disappointments so much that you stop hoping. I'm a top student in the university of being there for others who have no qualms with pushing me aside. I am a master at being invisible, learning to deal with lives crushing blows alone, and surviving years alone.

Leadership

Whatever job you have, movies you watch, organization you belong to, or family you are in, there is a leader. Sometimes it's you. Sometimes the leader is someone else. Sometimes you share the responsibility or you lead while being under another person's guidance.

You get the point.

Today I started thinking about some stuff. I know, sketchy situation, but it happened.

I was Googling conferences and retreats to go to, when I started thinking about the various conferences and retreats I've been to.

There is a leader who has the idea. They enlist the help of others to help get this idea off the ground. Those people then begin to pick subjects, dates, locations, and the millions of other details that go into such an event. The speakers start to carefully choose the subject matter and words they want to use, and work it over and over until it's "just right".

All of this to say that I feel woefully unprepared to be a leader. I don't feel like I can be a leader for a bible study (the one that I am presently doing). Nor do I feel that I could lead at a church, or at work, or anywhere else. I feel unprepared and subpar.

The thing that I have learned about leaders is that they have often walked some rough roads and learned some really difficult lessons. This isn't always the case, but occurs often. Good leaders need to be able to listen to and respect those they are called to lead. This helps them to be effective and *usually* respected. Leaders typically have some type of wonderful lessons that they teach others, whether on purpose or inadvertently.

We look to leaders to know what to do. To burden the responsibility of decision making so that we can carry out orders without bad outcomes being our fault. We want reassurance or gentle guidance to help us in our quest to fulfill our goals. We want someone to give us tasks to complete in order to help us feel like we have purpose and meaning in what we are doing.

We want someone to have the idea, to carry out a great deal of legwork, and then to present to us an idea that is interesting to us, so that we can partake of the benefits. I do it. I want someone to research the things I am interested in, put it in a pleasing format, and then provide me with the invitation to decide whether I want to hear the info or not. (i.e. Invitations to conferences, with speakers talking on subjects they have studied for years that have piqued my interest. But I want the choice to say no.)



The problem here, and the reason I am writing this post is because I feel people keep shoving me into "leadership" kinds of positions. Sometimes I shove myself into said position. Sometimes there is just a huge push from others. Then, however, I get into said position and flounder. At which pint I get told that it was not the right time. It was too soon. It was wrong.

I know it's not good to simply do things because someone else is telling me to do it, but sometimes we are supposed to follow another person's guidance in order to start something.

I get frustrated because there are times when it seems G-d is calling me to do something. Without telling anyone else about this, I get a friend or family member who encourages me to do this something. So, I do it but it was wrong.

Then I'm left feeling like a fool. I want to climb in a hole, cry myself to sleep, and proceed to not have to wake up. Yeah, this is a bit dramatic for the minute-ness of the situation and I can see that. I also know that I'm not actually going to crawl in a hole and die. For some stupid reason, I keep waking up. Day after day, week after week, month after month. For YEARS. It hasn't stopped me in the last 24+ years. Sometimes I sleep the day away, but there are moments of being awake in there.

The shame of failures does not keep me from going on about my day. It doesn't keep me from talking to the family and friends who shame me, unnecessarily. It doesn't cause me to miss work, or to hide out in bed (unless I don't have anything scheduled that particular day.)



I am, by no means, a leader. I have no desire for the responsibility and I am woefully unprepared.

Somebody please remind me of this when I think to try some type of leadership role in the future. Be the one to save me from humiliation. Somebody be the one to snap me back to my senses and keep me from the pits of self-inflicted troubles. Good gosh, I'm a fool.

Sleepless in... Just Sleepless

Instead of sleeping, as I should be for my day shift Labor and Delivery shift tomorrow, I'm laying here in bed with my mind racing.

I let Best Friend know that I need to be friends, and nothing more, because I am having a hard time. He took it rough, but he seemed gracious enough. Next day, he asked me over. He was in a terrible mood, looked exhausted, and he snapped at me a few times. I knew I shouldn't have gone over, but I was confused when he invited me, so I went. Bad choice, I should have trusted my gut.

He keeps texting me every once in a while, trying to pretend like he's not hurting. I know that he is. I am too, just not in the same way.

He brought up that I don't seem okay tonight, as we were casually texting. I wish that our conversations didn't just happen over the phone, where we're just reading words on a screen instead of able to listen to inflection and be able to clarify things as they come up. Instead, we choose the stupid route of sending off sentences at a time, then waiting minutes, to respond with a few more sentences. A 30 minutes conversation could go was faster, and way better in person, but we drag it out over a few very painful days.

He doesn't understand why I can't just "let my walls down and let him in". Dude, I don't even know why I can't do that! It doesn't make any sense to me! I don't know why I can't figure out dating. Why I can't get past this shit.  Why I can't just be normal and have a fucking relationship where I don't end up in another level of PTSD or I end up hurting others because I'm in my survival PTSD brain. I can't figure it out! That's why I'm in counseling.

I guess I have an attachment disorder. Who'da thunk it?

Maybe I am supposed to just be single. I came to terms with that until Best Friend decided being friends wasn't enough, and then I slowly talked myself into thinking about dating again. Then I told a couple of friends that are always worried about me finding someone so that we can "double date" that I kissed Best Friend and they got all excited.

I know that relationships are NOT about making my friends happy, but somewhere along the line, I got confused and stopped thinking. That ended me in an "almost" relationship and that's where I shut down again and started regressing down the wanting to smoke line again... My anxiety came back... I started having worries and nightmares again... I started in with other self-destructive behaviors (I did not start cutting again, don't worry)...

When I told my counselor about Best Friend, I was excited, but reserved. That was about 3-4 weeks ago. When I told her about him this week, and how I was regressing, she confirmed that it was not fair for him and that for my sanity, I needed to talk with him. She encouraged me to do it face-to-face, and I fully planned to do that. But he started texting me after my counseling session, and instead of just taking my "it went okay" text, he started probing for details. I know, it's none of his business. However, I shared with him that I was struggling. He asked if it was because of how we were progressing, and I said "kind of". Then he started apologizing, and he was convinced that he caused me to have flashbacks and caused all of this damage to me. I reassured him, it was not his fault.

His mom shared with him, just an hour before our conversation, that she was depressed. Had I known that, I would have handled my problem differently. I did not, however, know about their conversation about her struggles, so he got double dumped on by two ladies in his life. This sweet kid is very caring and it was just too much for him.

Therefore, when I saw him the next day and he looked exhausted and was snappy, I had a pretty good idea of why. And, unfortunately, he just confirmed my suspicions, all on his own. He's having a rough go of things right now.

He mentioned that everybody gets hurt by me, and it's true. I honestly don't think that dating is a good idea for me because it doesn't end well.

Apologies

So, I ended up apologizing to Jersey. I just sent her an email.

Now, I apologized with making no excuses.

I told her I was sorry about the timing and I apologized for my tone. I told her I feel like the conversation was important to have, but that I was overly-assertive in my tone.

I don't feel like it will be received well, but I'm working on my end to reverse some of the damage. This will not, by any means, allow the friendship to be fixed. I'm over that and I won't do it. However, I want her to know that I am not simply doing things to piss her off or cause her harm.

This might open up a whole new can of worms, but I'm trying to ignore my pride and admit when I fuck up.

Yep, it's a hard one and I'm going to reap some consequences, but I hope that she understands that I was not trying to hurt her, I just needed to be heard if she feels that she needs to be heard.

I'm not even hoping to be able to sleep well tonight.

Somebody, take me out of my misery.