Danger Will Robinson*

When I was a kid and Lost in Space came on in reruns the Robot irked me and I ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS thought the creepy doctor was going to kill them all or at least the kid. There a lot of telling information there. Warnings are useless and no one heeds them. And the monsters are someone you know.

I have a panic monster, lives in my gut. Lots of people have a version of it no matter what they call it. Mine grew into being when I was a kid, hence why he is a panic monster.

It’s fear that gnaws at your stomach and takes swipes at your fight or flight instincts. The monster loose in my guts allows the outer me to hold still and look calm. I am guessing that it was a childhood coping mechanism to separate myself from what was happening, or what was bubbling under the surface waiting to happen. And like most of my monsters growing up, didn’t kick them out.

Time blurs when the panic monster is near. Faces super-impose on top. Violence is interchangeable. I see, stepdad, over rapist, over ex husband, over…

Each raised voice, echoes, each sharp movement makes my nerve endings catch fire. Fight or flight. Who am I kidding? Flight isn’t an option. They find you. They always find you. Even wearing someone else’s face.

Patterns. Triggers. It repeats and repeats and motherfucking repeats.

And the panic monster claws at my gut, and runs his finger down my spine. And good respectable folks turn away because it’s uncomfortable.

Lost In Space, September 15, 1965– March 6, 1968, Creator Irwin Allen.

I hate everything about you*

If you have been around for a while, or gone back through the almost two hundred of these rants then we have established a few things. For those of you who haven’t I will give you an overview.

1) emotional abuse is real, and will damage your view of self.

2) physical abuse will damage your view of self.

3) you will unconsciously repeat these learned patterns.

4) even when you recognize the patterns sometimes you can’t control how you respond.

5) this leads to more self punishment and feelings of worthlessness.

6) I have made leaps and bounds in recovery.

7) I’m not there yet.

8) it doesn’t take much to screw up my head.

There are we all caught up?

I have been told that I am beautiful. I awkwardly accept the compliments. Deep down I don’t believe them. I’ve been told that I’m intelligent and interesting. I smile. And know that it’s for show.

As far back as I can remember the list of insults far outweighed the good things. Going all the way back to single digits.

Stupid

Ugly

Airhead

Fatass

Mouthy

Bitch

When I hit puberty things were added like

Whore

Slut

Cunt

But those are just decorations, garnishment for the rest.

My ideas where always stupid

If I displayed a talent or eagerness for something it would be picked apart and flaws pulled out.

So that you are always striving for approval, to be good enough.

And I learned, never show that you care too much about something. Never let them know what makes you happy or sad. Because it will be filed away to be used against you later. But even as you hide yourself you ache for approval, love, attention, acceptance.

And skilled manipulators know this. So they give you just enough that you don’t lose hope. And I was unfortunately with people who could teach the class.

Oh, I forgot a couple

9) withholding love as punishment is abuse.

10) to a damaged self esteem silence is filled with all the awful things that they believe are wrong with themselves

11) eventually you start to believe that it is a flaw in you that causes people to hurt you and that you deserve it

12) grooming is real, and you don’t know it is happening

I began to accept and believe I was being justly punished for just in general being me.

I accepted it as what I deserved.

I sought out people who let me continue the process. I loved and married replicas of my past.

And hated myself for it even more.

I’ve learned to ignore most of the echoes in my head. But, they haven’t gone away.

I’ve self medicated with drugs, alcohol, alchemy and men. (Can we agree that sex is a drug?)

I have made a fool of myself seeking that approval and acceptance. And sunk to rock bottom when I am not enough.

What was done to me. I survived thus far. I may never be undamaged. I need to accept myself.

And some days, it falls away, sometimes I am the baddest bitch on the block. Other days, when I am vulnerable and low, mostly I just hate myself for being like this.

* Ugly Kid Joe, 1992.

Dust

People can change.

They change behavior

They change their minds

They change their patterns

They change beliefs

For some, they wake up one day and it’s just different. Or maybe it happens on a long drive or watching the sunset. You have an epiphany you gain a new perspective.

For me at least, the universe has never been that gentle. (actually laughed here) All of my epiphanies have been preceded by some sort of cataclysm. Or a thousand cuts. Not one deadly but combined you bleed to death slowly.

Or if you like the more graphic tales, the old fable of the frog in a boiling pot. It’s been used in books and movies.

“If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.

Version of the story from Daniel Quinn‘s The Story of B“

In researching the above I found the horrible phrase “creeping normality” which looped around to a link for a death by a thousand cuts.
Fuck. The. Circle.

Anyway. You have the picture.

Either it blows up in my face or I soak till it’s too late.

I envy the people sometimes who can rewrite based on the beauty of a flower instead of the dust in the rubble. Just ain’t me.

I think, sometimes, I’m getting better. Because I recognize the “creeping normality”. Now I have to figure out how to act before I HAVE to react.

And that’s where I’m stuck.

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Asked and Answered

I’m angry, I am, it has simmered down some, it’s not that white hot angry that burns down everything. (It was, briefly)

I’m frustrated, because things seem simple to me. I’m hurt, because you shut down.

You asked a thousand times, “Are you mad?” Today, yes, I am.

I keep my inner circle small. I know a lot of people. But the people who know me? Numbered.

Because, trust, I understand what loyalty is, and how few people actually have it. I was told I need to surround myself with people I can trust….

Why can’t people just speak? Simple sentences of single words forming ideas to convey what is in their brain to the rest of the fucking world so that it’s plain.

People fall back on euphemisms and paltry fluff. What makes your words so special that they are to be saved up and doled out? I said the things that fell hard from my mouth, cutting my own tongue on the edges and you fall back on I don’t know? Who the hell does know?

Are we not all just stumbling around blind?

If you don’t speak, if there is no communication, you are jumping froggy to some conclusion and obviously you have landed somewhere away left from the correct one.

Let’s sit down and have class? Someone speaks, someone else hears, interprets and replies. Every part of that involves perceptions. Which if there is confusion… You follow up and get clarification. Holy shit! This involves both parties.

The thing is

I don’t know, is also a perfectly good answer.

It is.
When there is open dialogue. Because you know that eventually it will be sorted out. Shutting down, shutting up and being dismissive….

So yeah angry, angry because I allowed myself to be vulnerable. I trusted you to be who you said. Maybe that why it’s a slow burn instead of a white hot.

Because I am just as fucking mad at me for trusting.

Everything we do as higher primates is based on communication. Without words we read body language, facial expressions. Music. Art. Touch.

Poor codependent social creatures that human beings are. Silence speaks. It says hurtful things. When a simple answer would have been enough.

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Expendable

To be wanted. To be special to someone. To be held and called wicked. Time. Attention. To matter. To be the reason someone smiles. Fake the rest. Fix something that lacks in my life so I can keep pretending I can breathe here.Something mine that made the rest of THIS bearable. Someone who didn’t pick me apart and make me hate my own reflection. Someone who doesn’t just want something from me. But wanted me. Not just what I could do for them. I want to be touched like I am something special.But, what I want doesn’t matter does it? Put me down and walk away. Forget communication, and all the other things you said. Like “mine”. I believed I was something besides expendable. I’m not though. My fault for believing.

Take Me There

Take me there

The when

The where

Your hands are not steady, and buttons pull lose from fabric.

Where
Words half formed fall awkward from lips that can’t stop touching skin

Where the breath catching in our throats has jagged and ragged edges

There, to the edge and over.

Where needing to be inside of me is as vital as air.

Take me there

Where skin is feverish, hot against skin

Where flesh yields to strong hands

Where I feel your pulse moving inside of me

Take me there

Where rhythm matches need

Where my hips rock and arch to meet you, fingers biting my hips as you thrust

Take me there
Where roaming hands, tongue trailing shivers across your neck.

There

In your arms, curled against you.

There

Push

I’m a contradiction walking.

I’m told that I’m hard, cold, harsh.

I’m a bleeding heart. Fighting for people who won’t try.

I’m told that I mean.

I know that I say things other people don’t want to hear.

Sometimes I say what I need to hear.

The easiest ways, simple, fast and plain.

Euphemisms are for little old ladies in South. I’m not old yet.

I’m really good at looking from the outside in and finding solutions.

She told me I tend everyone else’s gardens so I don’t have to dig up the bones in mine.

She’s right in some ways. I’ve taken lots of weeds out of my yard. From the inside this is so chaotic and haphazard.

There are broken things I want to mend. But the debris of my life overwhelm me. So I just pick things up, examine them and drop them again when the next one catches my eye.

I can’t find the starting point. It’s not for lack of trying, I don’t have the mental endurance.

I quit on myself so much easier than I do on others. I’ll be your champion, slay your demons.

Yet can’t find enough hope in my heart to lift the sword against my own. I’ve mixed metaphors. But the truth is there. I rush in claymore in hand for you. And poke around mine with a garden spade. I feel hopeless, and helpless. Holding back the crushing weight of all of it.

So, I say the things you need to hear verses what you want to hear. I stand back to back, shoulder to shoulder or between you and your demons.

All the while feeding mine fresh blood and pounds of flesh under the table where no one sees.
I’m not foolish enough to think it hidden. Everyone sees me stumbling. They just haven’t noticed yet how much longer it’s taking me to regain my feet.

Holding my tongue, my breath and my tears.

I’m having a hard time swallowing it down today.

Seeing the bigger picture. It’s stupid little shit that’s just crawling around in my head, the build up of bullshit and disappointment.

It’s a thousand times a thousand broken promises. I’m trying to not count all the times I have “made do” and struggled to get by and figured out how to make it.

I’m trying to not hear all the hurtful, hateful echoing on repeat. All the broken promises.

All the time I’ve spent standing up and holding onto this farce of if you just don’t fucking give up.

Head down, put your shoulder into it and keep fucking pushing.

I so damned tired.

“Unstoppable Force Paradox

What is it? Dating back to a 3^rd century Chinese philosophical book, Han Feizi, the paradox that we know today as “What happens when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object” was first written down. The author, Han Feizi wrote about a man trying to sell a spear and a shield. When the buyer asked how good his spear was, his response was that his spear could pierce any shield. When asked about how good his shield was, the seller said it could defend from all spear attacks. This immediately raised the question from the buyer, “what would happen if he took the spear and struck the shield?”

Wait, What? Both the immovable object and the unstoppable force (irresistible force) are both implicitly assumed to be indestructible because if they weren’t, then the answer would obviously be “it destroys it.” It is also assumed that both the immovable object and the irresistible force are two separate entities since an irresistible force is implicitly an immovable object, and vice versa. The paradox is that there are such things as irresistible forces and immovable objects; which cannot both be true at the same time. Therefore if an irresistible force exists, logically there can’t be any such thing as an immovable object, and vice versa.” Thomas Castronova, Listical, May 23, 2014.

When Superman was faced with the question, he simply said “they surrender” *

Joker also posed this to Batman, finishing with ” I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”* *

Trust me, no one beats the truth drum harder than the monsters in my head.

Painting by:

* DC Comics, All-Star Superman

** The Dark Knight 2008.