My Other, Empty Journal
May. 22nd, 2009 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litoteaseSomeday -- not yet, not yet, but someday -- I will write about what it meant to grow up with a mother who was brilliant, and feisty; who wore sequins, and satin, and loved high-heeled shoes; who could sit down at a piano and improvise jazz and boogie for hours on end; who was passionate about politics and social justice; and who was mentally ill -- schizophrenic (clinically, not colloquially) ; and from a very ugly home.
I will write about having a father who was brilliant, and gifted with words; who spent his career trying to help others; and who was also a narcissist with inappropriate boundaries; angry; alcoholic; and from a very ugly home.
I will write about going to 14 schools in 12 years (and how that plays into my social anxiety), because I was bouncing back and forth between homes, because I lived with whoever was most stable, whoever felt the safest, and that changed and changed quickly.
Most of all, I will write about how those two homes were my safe homes. I begged to live with them. Because sometime between my 2nd and 4th birthdays, I was sent to live with my mother's parents. I lived there until I was 10. I don't remember much from those years. Never have. Most of the things I do remember are things that happened away from the house: school, Camp Fire Girls, weekend visits away at my parent's homes. (My grandfather died the summer I turned eight. I have no memories of him -- not of interacting with him, not of where he sat at the table, nothing.) Even as a kid I knew the blank spaces in my head were odd, knew at 9 that it was weird to not remember 7. I just figured there was something wrong with me, something missing in me, that I'd been built wrong.
So someday I will write about the process of trying to recover repressed memories at the ripe old age of 53. (I first attempted this 20 years ago. My therapist at the time tried hypnosis, and walked me through remembering what the inside of the house I lived in until I was 10 looked like. I was dissociative for two weeks afterwords, not fully functional at work or at home. Since I was the sole emotional and financial supporter of a small child at the time, being that dysfunctional was not OK, and my therapist suggested I wait to do the work for a time in my life when it was safer to do so. I'm trying again, now.)
Someday I will write about all of this because I need to talk about it, even if I'm just shouting it to an empty room. I need to do it out loud or on paper, not just in the silence of my own head. I know I need to: the song Say brings me to tears every time I hear it ("Even if your hands are shaking, and you're faith is broken, even as your eyes are closing, do it with a heart wide open; say what you need to say...."). (The last time it came up in my playlist, I wound up railing at my current therapist, "How can you say what you need to say when you don't remember what it is?")
So, someday.
And when I am ready to write about these things, I WILL NOT DO IT HERE. I'll do it atstand_up_eight instead (true for both DW & LJ). I set stand_up_eight up for just that purpose. It may stand empty for years (it already has on LJ), and that's OK. I'm not ready, yet. But someday.
This journal, though, this one right here, isn't the place for that. It's my safe place. It's my place to be fannish, to play, my window to the world, to check in on y'all, to read amazingly astute commentary from stunningly bright minds. Sometimes it's my place to deal with current stuff in my life, but I generally cut-tag that.
I'm posting this here, now, because my DWstand_up_eight account is getting invite codes to hand out, and I love handing out invite codes. *g* So I've put up a post there directing people here, but figured an explanation was in order. Plus, it's maybe time to explain to my long-time friends here why I frequently go radio silent, even when I'm clearly still hanging around (reading doesn't trigger the old shit, but interacting sometimes can -- which doesn't mean that I don't want to interact, because I do, I do. Just, sometimes it's harder than others.)
Crossposted to LiveJournal
I will write about having a father who was brilliant, and gifted with words; who spent his career trying to help others; and who was also a narcissist with inappropriate boundaries; angry; alcoholic; and from a very ugly home.
I will write about going to 14 schools in 12 years (and how that plays into my social anxiety), because I was bouncing back and forth between homes, because I lived with whoever was most stable, whoever felt the safest, and that changed and changed quickly.
Most of all, I will write about how those two homes were my safe homes. I begged to live with them. Because sometime between my 2nd and 4th birthdays, I was sent to live with my mother's parents. I lived there until I was 10. I don't remember much from those years. Never have. Most of the things I do remember are things that happened away from the house: school, Camp Fire Girls, weekend visits away at my parent's homes. (My grandfather died the summer I turned eight. I have no memories of him -- not of interacting with him, not of where he sat at the table, nothing.) Even as a kid I knew the blank spaces in my head were odd, knew at 9 that it was weird to not remember 7. I just figured there was something wrong with me, something missing in me, that I'd been built wrong.
So someday I will write about the process of trying to recover repressed memories at the ripe old age of 53. (I first attempted this 20 years ago. My therapist at the time tried hypnosis, and walked me through remembering what the inside of the house I lived in until I was 10 looked like. I was dissociative for two weeks afterwords, not fully functional at work or at home. Since I was the sole emotional and financial supporter of a small child at the time, being that dysfunctional was not OK, and my therapist suggested I wait to do the work for a time in my life when it was safer to do so. I'm trying again, now.)
Someday I will write about all of this because I need to talk about it, even if I'm just shouting it to an empty room. I need to do it out loud or on paper, not just in the silence of my own head. I know I need to: the song Say brings me to tears every time I hear it ("Even if your hands are shaking, and you're faith is broken, even as your eyes are closing, do it with a heart wide open; say what you need to say...."). (The last time it came up in my playlist, I wound up railing at my current therapist, "How can you say what you need to say when you don't remember what it is?")
So, someday.
And when I am ready to write about these things, I WILL NOT DO IT HERE. I'll do it at
stand_up_eight instead (true for both DW & LJ). I set stand_up_eight up for just that purpose. It may stand empty for years (it already has on LJ), and that's OK. I'm not ready, yet. But someday.This journal, though, this one right here, isn't the place for that. It's my safe place. It's my place to be fannish, to play, my window to the world, to check in on y'all, to read amazingly astute commentary from stunningly bright minds. Sometimes it's my place to deal with current stuff in my life, but I generally cut-tag that.
I'm posting this here, now, because my DW
stand_up_eight account is getting invite codes to hand out, and I love handing out invite codes. *g* So I've put up a post there directing people here, but figured an explanation was in order. Plus, it's maybe time to explain to my long-time friends here why I frequently go radio silent, even when I'm clearly still hanging around (reading doesn't trigger the old shit, but interacting sometimes can -- which doesn't mean that I don't want to interact, because I do, I do. Just, sometimes it's harder than others.)Crossposted to LiveJournal