Killing my body
Friday, August 6, 2010 at 5:46PM 
I'm dressed in black. I stand in a pool of warm water. Waves ripple. An alligator surfaces, bumps into my legs, into my thighs, bares his teeth. I know I have to stand there, whether he bites me or not. He doesn't. I notice another woman who stands behind to me. I don't see her face, I don't know who she is. I notice a man outside of the pool. I don't see his face either, I know who he is. He orders me to step out. Just in time. I squeeze the warm water from my pants and socks. It's dark. I look out the window, contemplating how I would walk back home through the city, with wet pants and only socks on my feet. The alligator lazily comes to the glass of the pool. He is small and long, looks more like a leech. A realization downs on me on what he really is. I wake up.
This week I barely slept 4 hours a night, if at all. Sometimes it's 6, but I hardly had any deep sleep. I run forward working, writing, connecting, doing stuff - slowly killing my body in the process. I know something is coming, another big memory, and I'm scared as to what this is about. Who was that woman - mother figure? Who was that man - father figure? What is my subconsious trying to tell me? My entire lower body was vulnerable and wet with dark water, black water - blood? I have visions of my mother naked, of me being in bed with her, of me being so ashamed because I found my hand stuck between her breasts. Could it be? Would my mother have anything to do with my abuse? Did my sister remember it correctly that mom told her how she beat me with a belt on my bare bottom, and I smiled back, not making a sound, which irritated her more, which made me even more stubborn to not make a sound? Mother denied it, but could it be true?
Whoa. Here is what just happened - as I was typing these words, my head suddenly got dizzy and I swayed, literally swayed as if someone pushed me. I nearly fell off the chair. If I didn't know how to calm my body by now, I would have gone into a panic attack. Haven't had those in a few months now. It can't be. I don't want to think about this. I don't want to know. I'm running away from my body, because it is trying to tell me something. I'm choosing the exhaust it, to not know, to bury. One persistent memory that keeps popping up is of a man raping me and my mom giggling. I can't see the man, I see myself and him outside of my body, from the ceiling of the room. The man says - look, she likes it! And my mom giggles. And he gives her money after. I know my mother never had a job. She always needed money. But it couldn't be this.
One persistent family story keeps haunting me, my maternal grandmother who hit me in the head and beat the crap out of me, told my paternal grandmother that my mom takes me to these apartments where she meets these men for sex, and where who knows what happens to me. I was 10 at the time. My grandmother called my father to convince him to take me away, to take me with his new family to Germany. This is the family story, this is the story I've been told, to give me proof that my mother was a prostitute and a bitch worth nothing. That she would screw anyone anywhere. That when she was in a psychiatric hospital for her routine check-out (once or twice a year my grandma would put her there, to "straighten her brain"), she screwed a doctor there. And that's how my sister was born (one of my two step-sisters). This was the story told to me to the point where I believed it, and to the point where I stopped all contact with my mother, until she was lost completely to me. Until I found her last year and reconnected again. Until I realized that the monster in our family was the father. And I forgave her all her absences from my childhood, her inability to protect me, her ignorance of my pain and symptoms. I hoped I found one soul who loved me dearly in the sea of this Frankenstein story.
And yet... I remember some apartment where I didn't know where I would sleep. I only remember the entry hall. And her talking to some man. The man scolding her because another woman had found a long dark hair in the hall. My mother's hair. Did she really take me somewhere? As I type this, my hands shake. I don't want to even think this. I only got my mother back. Is there a reason for me to think this? Is there a reason I cut her out of my life? Here is the worst part of this all - I know my body never lied to me. I know something is prompting me to ruin it, to drive it into the state of exhaustion, to punish it, so that it won't speak up. I don't want to hear what it might tell me, I don't want to think about it. I'm killing it, killing it, killing it. I want to stop but I don't want to at the same time. I want to keep it all happy. I want to forget, but I know whatever it is, it will come out eventually, and if it won't, it will eat me from inside out. I'm dizzy now and can barely write. Please, mother, you didn't do anything bad to me, did you? Please, tell me, you didn't. Please do something so that my body stops doing this stuff to me! Why does it do it??
Please tell me why I remember only a few moments with you from my entire childhood?
30 minutes later... I couldn't really write anymore, I got dizzy. I'm still dizzy. I'm terrified at the idea. I can't think of going to therapy next week and drawing. I can't stand the dawn of another panic attack, let alone going through it again. I must have just confused things. I need to rest. I will wake up tomorrow and it all will be gone. And I would be wrong at spilling my guts here, and I would take it all back.
Photo by Gaelx.
Reader Comments (3)
No your body won't lie to you if you have learned to listen to it...that is true...praying for you...I hear your words, I honour your hurt and I silently stand beside you, one scarred sister with another, to say I believe your body too. Trust it, let it lead you past this, through this, to the place where sleep will be sacred. Much love...
Oh, hon. It is very hard to work through memories and flashbacks and snippets of things in dreams. It is also very difficult to realize that the one person you thought might have been on your side...wasn't. I don't know about you and your mom, but I know that I struggled with realizing that in my own life. I had always thought one parent was the abuser and one the victim. In my case, I realized that both were abusers. My heart goes out to you. Yes...the body can tell us many things. You will get through this.
Thanks gals... feeling much better this morning. I'm not alone, I have you, I have my kids, my husband - my own family. I always hoped that there was 1 person among my parents who wanted me. There wasn't. Well, I would have to live with it... working through it - thank you for standing by me!