Have you ever had a “dark night of the soul” day where you just wanted to hide from the world and from your self, because you feel like a loser with nothing to share? You look in the mirror and don’t like what you see… the wrinkles, fat rolls, thinning hair, and all the rest. You get out of bed in the morning dreading another day, because your life feels like a futile effort… a big fat cosmic joke that doesn’t feel funny at all. And you find yourself wanting to cry for no reason at all. It can happen anywhere… in the car, in front of the TV, in front of the stove.
Well, my dark night has lasted for a whole month now. And I know I need to change it, but part of me just doesn’t want to make any effort towards anything except necessities… eating, toilet visits…. eating more, and going back to bed, with an occasional run to Circle K for another pack of smokes. It’s pathetic… I know, but still I don’t have the will power or whatever character trait I need right now to change it. I’ve tried shaming myself… look at all you have… you are healthy, have a car, a roof over your head, food, clothes to wear, a great family, etc., etc., but that frozen part of me doesn’t care. It feels it deserves shame.
Wrapped up in my pity party, I make a very small package. I know all the right things to say to myself. The things I would say to others feeling like I feel right now. Somehow, none of my earthly wisdom is helping at all. I’ve lost faith in my God and myself. I have had so many sorrows over the last three years that I feel beaten and broken… maybe too broken this time to be fixed. I trusted my intuition and fell flat on my face, and god it hurt … and I did it over and over and over, and every time, it just hurt more. I prayed, pleaded, knocked… like the good book says works, but no doors opened and no one answered my prayers, A man I was in love with was killed in a car accident. A couple of years later, another I had waited to meet for 35 years, turned out to have a contagious disease. I had two surgeries that left me staggering in infection and killer pain for many months, and ultimately cost me my job. Three of my family members died and two of my friends… one brutally killed himself… all within a few months. The jobs I really wanted didn’t come through, so finances really suck right now, and my flipping IBM computer has over 500 viruses on it and I can’t afford to fix it. Last but not least, a recent x-ray showed a mass on one of my lungs from Valley Fever and my doctor wants a CT scan.
So I ask you… how would you feel? Lucky? Full of gratitude? Joyful? Or like you’d been run over by a truck?
They say that it isn’t what life brings to you, but what you do with it that counts. Well, I don’t know what to do with the last three years. If I was a dog and the years were a pile of bones, I’d bury them for sure and never look back. My life actually didn’t start out all that well either. I was molested when I was two years old and it lasted for years. The good news is that I’m in the top one percent of those sexually molested before the age of five, who have a “normal” life. Whatever that means. Maybe that I’m not a drug addict, alcoholic, or suicidal. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t dabble in the addictions or that suicide never crossed my mind as a teen and young adult. It did. I’m addicted to tobacco… one of society’s lepers now… so sue me.
And my normal life is pretty normal, except for the lengthy depressions that can last a month….. but they don’t happen often anymore, and there’s my heightened startle response, which is still firmly entrenched in my body. Sometimes I get in bed and start to doze off, then suddenly the refrigerator starts running. The noise startles me so badly that my adrenalin goes crazy… my heart races and pumps so hard, I think it is going to burst. Visions of an intruder race through my mind. I take deep breaths and tell myself it is just the refer… I live in a safe place… calm down… go to sleep. And I roll over and try to doze. But then the house settles and makes a loud crack, or someone slams a car door outside, and I’m back on Mr. Toad’s wild ride. My mind races. I know there is no intruder, but I also know there is no way I am going to calm down enough to feel safe enough to sleep.
So I do the only rational thing I can think of to do. I get up for the fifth or sixth time, check the house, peer out the windows, then I find my purse, cell phone, and car keys, bring them into the bedroom and put them beside my bed. I take my loaded gun out of my drawer and put it on the nightstand. Then I lock the bedroom door and get back into bed. I figure if an intruder comes through my locked bedroom door, he will be facing his worst nightmare… a terrified woman with a cell phone, bad memories, and who is a crack shot with a loaded 45. Okay, so my normal maybe isn’t exactly as normal as most people’s. But in my defense, I have to say I only act this weirdness out every six months or so…. not so bad considering all that happened to me as a child. Well, hell, I was raped three times too… as a young adult. And the abuse from the sick old great uncle, who continued to frequent our family gatherings, was a terror lasted for years.
So back to my NOW and my inertia… I’m a pro at being knocked down and getting back up. I’ve done it so many, many times throughout my life, but this time I’m having a really hard time getting back up. I know what it takes. I know how to do it, but this time I’m not sure I want to get back up. How pathetic is that? I know, it is really the epitome of self-pity and I should be ashamed, but then that is the problem… I feel ashamed of myself. Too ashamed of myself to want to get back up. Why? I’ve made some terrible decisions in my life and they caused me some serious and painful losses that could not be recovered. Some of my bad decisions were over the last three years… and in the last six months. I no longer trust myself.
So, I don’t know the answer to my dark night of the soul right now. One bright thing that did happen today was that a girlfriend of 15 years called me. Right away she knew I was down, so she gave me her New Yorker’s pep talk. It went something like, “Fly your freak flag! You were an abused child, a survivor. Fly your flag with pride!” She made me laugh… the first time in a month.
She also told me her impression of me the first time we met; that she thought I was kind, generous, talented, and very beautiful, physically and on the inside, and said how amazed she was watching men look at me, knowing that I was oblivious of the attention. She told me how each time I talked to her through the years and listened to her goals and dreams and offered suggestions and told her she could do it and to go for it… that I had helped her and given her the confidence to dream bigger. She touched me with her loving words, stroked my legging ego, and she made me cry.
So, that’s what this blog is about tonight. This is my freak flag and I’m flying it for you to see. Yeah… I’m the survivor of early childhood abuse. It was sheer hell, and sometimes I am amazed that I lived through it, because there were many times I didn’t think I would. I still have my quirks after 50 years of living, and sometimes depression hits me really hard and long. And yes, sometimes I still fall into the deep dark hole of self-pity, like now. But tonight I remember one of the things that really helps me to pull myself back out. And that is the love and kindness of another human being willing to listen without judging me; willing to encourage me, and to point out some things that are good, healthy, and admirable about me. Like my dear friend, Tricia, did for me tonight. Maybe some prayers are answered.
I think I can crawl out of this pity pit now, even if it’s going to take a little time. I’m feeling at least willing to try now… one more time, because someone took the time to say they loved me while I am not feeling lovable.
So, if you know someone who is hurting, maybe give them a call. Take it from me, it will mean much more to them than you will probably ever know. We are all unique, creative winners. sometimes we just forget this fact.
