I don't cry pretty...

I am not one of those women who look charmingly disarrayed when upset. I cry ugly, my face goes all blotchy and red, my nose runs, my eyes puff up into little lizard-like slits.

I don't cry quietly... I sob and gasp for breath, I am loud and intrusive, I am not private in my grief.

I don't cry publicly...

I have a toughened facade that no-one sees through. I keep it all held tightly together, wound brittle, hard, impenetratable.

And underneath seethes this raw, open scream wanting to break out. It has stolen my words, this silence, it has taken my voice. I begin to write, words tumbling, stumbling to flow onto this blog but as my fingers touch the keyboard...

They vanish.

And the scream continues to writhe, scrambling with sharpened claws of pain, aching to be freed.

If I let it out will my words come back, or will I vanish into the shrill?

I Am Here, Sort Of.

The past fortnight has taken a huge toll. There are parts of myself I worry I have lost forever. Some days I am angry, others I am, well, forlorn. I have taken some steps forward, I finally signed on for derby last night and oh, it was a joy to be far from here, away from the insidious whispers, feeling free. The skating flowed, the derby skills were rusty, but surpringly still there from eons ago. WHEN I am better I will blog and post photos in my Hellion blog, I promise.

I am dealing with the loss of my uncle, and am going home. I am so sad it is to say goodbye to someone who played a major role in shaping me, but also glad to be seeing family, some of whom I have not seen for so very long. Too long. I think the death and grief have pulled the rug out a little more, and halted the shaky steps forward I was making. I still cannot bear to be at the school. On the days I must pickup the boys, I shake, sweat and feel ill. I sit in the car, sunglasses cover my puffy eyes, visor pulled down, pretending to be engrossed in a novel or faking phone conversation on the hands free if someone approaches.

I wish it would stop. Sometimes I feel so normal I think: "Okay, now I'll jump back in, go see how the boys are doing, talk to the teachers." BUT every time I drive past or near the school the tremors resurface, and those feelings of being out of control, out of my depth leap to the forefront. Maybe I'll be better when I come back, maybe going home will give me back my emotional solidity, stop the emotional quicksand from sucking me down.

I hope so. This is quickly degenerating into one of those whiny, poor me blogs. And that has never been my style... until now.

Fighting My Inner Self

 At what point do you let go of all morals and integrity, the essence of who you were, and scream ENOUGH! At what stage do you spill all the truths no matter who it hurts?

Some moments I am raging inside with the injustice of it all, others I just want to curl up and die. I know I have a few solid, good people on my side, but the fact that others still believe the drivel, well it floors me and I must admit quite a few people I thought I knew well have dropped in my esteem.

Nine months of constant manipulation and bullshit. Nine months of shadows and whispers. Nine months of dripping poison and vitrol. Too long, too hard, too much. A lot of the time I was okay, fine in fact. Even though aware of the crap it did not get to me. But like all toxic bullies they have a honed sense of when to strike, when you are weak due to outside pressures and forces, when it will be most effective.

Someone suggested in a comment that I spill all here, and at times I am truly tempted to do so. But somewhere deep inside me I know if I do I become like them. And they are both so ugly inside and out I would hate to be like them.

So I hover undecided, fight or flee. The ammunition I have is lethal, if I choose fight then a lot of innocent people will be hurt as the horrific things they accused others of are revealed. Because, like I once did, these people perceive these two as friends and would be destroyed if they knew the truth.

And then there is also the biggest bombshell of all. The one that would annihilate people's perceptions forever. The one secret that only few know about the one master puppeteer.

*Tick*Tick**Tick*Tick**Tick*Tick**Tick*Tick**Tick*Tick*

Vanished

Where have I gone?

I was here not long ago...

I am awake

and feeling as if this blog is the only outside contact I can stand. Already the shaking has begun. I am terrified of school pickup, but I must do it for the sake of my kids. Ten hours away, and yet I feel sick at the thought of it, even though I am not setting foot on school grounds and my boys have agreed to come to the car.

We lay in bed last night, and laughed at something on the TV. Flashes of normalacy. He turned to me and said, "I like you" and I knew exactly what he meant with those three little words.
"I like you like this."
"I like you when you seem okay."
"I like having the real you back, if only for a moment."

Fleeting moments where it all seems fine, only to have some stupid thing set me off into full panic mode. Small sections of family life where I actually think, "hey, I feel okay, maybe it is getting better..." and then the fear and panic rise again.

Is this the beginning of my permanent descent? And in the early hours I wonder which relationship will they drip their poison into next, who will be the latest to look at me and shake their heads? How long until people realise how transparent the masks are if only you look hard enough?

To think a week ago I thought all was ceased, that it was icily civil and the lies had finally stopped. How can people be so naive to not see their guilt? If they are the ones harping on and on and on, and I am not, who is persecuting who?

And just as she accused her last hated obsession of faking her illness for attention, she will accuse me of the same. I guess mental health is easier to lie about than a brain tumour though. So more people will believe her on this one...

The Darkness.

I have been in the shadows before, but never like this. I have had those horrible black ideas fleetingly tempting me, but have not ever had to fight the craving for it all to stop so bad. I am not fighting for life, I am battling to defeat death. I am broken.

I don't get it. Why would someone hate so much that they would keep pushing, lying, pushing until you break? We were once friends, if I had been asked a year ago if I ever dreamt this would be possible I would have laughed and denied even the smallest possibility.

Right up until this week I have told mutual friends that I would willingly sit and talk this out, I have no idea why this all started, if you read back you will see that. Now I cannot. Not because I do not want to ask "Why?", but because I am barely holding the mask up. I cannot face the world, it is hard enough to face my family. I shake, oh God, I shake all the time. The tears have finally slowed enough for me to hide them some of the time.

I really don't understand. These last few months we have been fighting the hardest battles in our son's life, and we know this is the way it will be for years. Yes, years. At a time when my strength had ebbed to it's lowest point YOU choose to attack? Why? Why in hell would you do that to someone? Is it fear? Do I know too much about you? Are you scared people will know of the ugliness underneath? I have talked to some, that I do not deny, but it has been in bewilderment and I have not told any of your darkest confidences. Even this week, as I have hidden away from the world, I called no-one to show my desolation, did not let anyone in. Did NOT want anyone put in the middle. The only person told was not by me, it was by my very scared other, feeling so helpless as he watched me dissolve. Even then he did not tell all, only of the latest clash in front of my child. But I cannot fight shadows any further, and I no longer have the strength to face you. I am broken. You have won. Rejoice, feel proud you have taken me apart, laugh as you see the faces of my children who have watched what you reaped.

Enough!

I am here. Just. Hanging by a thread.

Is it something in the air?

Is it the cycle of the planets, or moon? Something is going on, and it seems to have affected the people I know en masse. We are all in an emotionally turbulent or vulnerable phase of our lives, many appear to have hit the emotional wall, or fallen into despair. Some, like myself, have suffered many invisible hits to our psyche and are staggering, punch drunk, waiting for the next blow.

So, what are the Gods trying to tell us all? Life is shit? Life is too hard, and we need to give up? Or is it a "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger" sort of test? I have no idea. But I tell you right now, I am screaming silently inside my smiling facade:

"ENOUGH!"