I noticed that writing the positive action I’m taking each day either delays the action-taking, OR that the positive actions end up being so powerful that I then don’t have the time to write them down that same day.
Which defeats the purpose, and you know what the doctor says. “If it hurts when you go like that, then don’t go like that.” So I don’t go like that anymore.
This holiday season is a little bit weird. Instead of going to someone else’s place like we normally do, my mother had said that she’d rather be at home. So my youngest sister and I will be cooking, which is fun.
Someone, definitely not me, will be cleaning the entire house for the arrival of family. Which is not fun.
I will volunteer to the do the downstairs bathroom and the floors in the living room and the old dining room if I’m up to it, but somehow it seems wrong to me that I…
the only person with a legitimate physical ailment …
…am the one volunteered to do the cleaning when other people are living here who were not doing their fair share. The only person here who ever cleaned up the whole house is my sister, who now has young twins. I’m just visiting and I pick up after myself. So no way am I doing everything.
Sorry about the hissy fit. I realized the only way to keep myself from getting pinned with the most manual labor was for me to write about it somewhere in public so I’d then be forced to keep my word.
It’ll be fun for my sister and I to cook together. But holidays are always particularly stressful for me.
I’m constantly on edge, waiting for one of the people who abused me during my childhood to walk into the house, jolly and carefree.
I hate even thinking about this but if I keep it stuffed down, that’s not going to work for me.
And I’m tired of talking about it every year only to get advice from people, rather than the comforting I crave. I really wish people “got” me more, or even listened to what I say to them about this, which is, stop trying to give me solutions to my life – already have them or tried them.
If I confide in you, unless you’re actually providing some sort of therapy to me, I want to rest for a minute. I want to let down my guard and just be, for a minute, before I return to my role starring in this Tinu movie. I want to be held. Just give me a hug. And I’ll be okay.
Anyway, so you’re probably wondering why people who caused me such pain, such repeated violating pain can just roll up on me, in my mother’s house no less, without fearing for their lives.
Well, some of those people were family. Not immediate family.
But in Yoruba culture that’s close enough. We’re a pretty close-knit pack and aunts are like second mothers, and cousins are like brothers and sisters you don’t see every day.
The abuse is still a family secret, something I’m deeply ashamed of.
Giving up that secret would mean giving up the parts of my family that I love too. So I’m not going for that. They don’t get that part of me too.
My mother eventually offered to stand by me against the rest of the family to tell everyone what happened to me. But I opted for forgiveness.
Not in the sense that they all get off scot free. I have warned some of them that I am watching them closely and am fully willing to ruin my life I hear so much as a whisper.
But I’m also recognizing that they hurt me due to some hurt that was being done to them and it goes so much deeper and far beyond me.
I’ve been repeatedly estranged from my family in the past, and the reason I am constantly leaving them for some other part of the country is in part because of this issue.
When a holiday comes, everyone visits my mother at some point. So I know, if they’re in town, when I least expect it, I’ll have to look into the eyes of someone who hurt me, and act like a civilized person.
When the festivities are at another family member’s house it’s so much easier for me, because there’s always something to do or somewhere to hide, or someone to hang out with. In recent years it has been really rare for it to be in my mother’s house that I felt comfortable getting closer to them.
My mind is stuck right now on a particular memory. I have to backtrack a little – I know this is really long already but otherwise it won’t make much sense.
I woke up at 4 am from a nightmare.
The sole abuser of my youngest sister had shown up for Christmas in this dream, and she wasn’t there. My mother was, but since she refuses to even talk to this person, that didn’t make sense, but I hadn’t figured out I was in a dream yet.
Synchro System by Sunny Ade was playing and they were trying to get me to sing along in English. Which didn’t make sense since it’s not in English.
What did make sense was him trying to get me to return to “talk about it” after everyone else had gone to bed. At which point I realized I was about to have a really bad nightmare, and woke up.
Reading that over, I don’t think the sense of dread and fear comes across. Oh well. That’s what takes me on this tangent tonight, and what takes me to to thought of why I don’t sleep well.
One person in particular used to wait until I was asleep to accost me. I remember waking up sometimes struggling away from him.
And I think maybe not being able to sleep isn’t just the physical pain. Maybe it never was. Maybe it’s not feeling safe when I’m asleep, and part of a pattern of waking myself up from sleep that I don’t even know about.
Which probably doesn’t make any sense to you in light of the fact that I never mentioned that I have a 90% block of all memory before the age of 9, when a good deal of the abuse happened.
It’s amazing how much of who and what you are in life is contained in those early years.
Fears you develop.
Loves you have.
Not just for people, but for foods. I hated yogurt as early as I can remember. I hated anything white or creamy. Yes, I’ve since realized, that means what you think it does.
I wouldn’t even drink milk.
This is long and rambly and I’m losing my mind. I think I’m just going to stop abruptly.