self analysis

I am…

an empath

a sexual assault survivor

a victim of severe emotional and mental abuse

anxious

supremely sensitive

living in chronic pain

a person with PTSD

a Taurus

an introvert

melancholic

clinically depressed

a being whose seems to love alcoholics

bat shit crazy

me

For so much time, I have tried to understand Me by putting myself into one of these boxes – I’ve attempted to explain myself to partners, friends, co-workers, children, by using one of these labels.

The problem is, I fit into all of the above categories and quite a few more that I haven’t listed.

And I realize that it doesn’t matter. I am all of the above and none of the above.

What I am is a person who is incredibly sensitive to energetic vibes; I feel a shift in the air. Someone else’s subtle change can hit me like a ton of bricks.

It’s what makes me the ear, the shoulder, the rock.

It’s also what makes me feel sorrow so much of the time.

I have years of heartbreak under my belt. I have been to hell and back more times than I can count. Enough so that I am way more able to roll with the punches.

At least certain ones. The big ones.

My father dies the same day that my uterus falls out.

Just another day in the life.

A global pandemic?

Yeah, whatever.

Unemployment?

I’ve been in this boat for the last year.

It’s old hat by now.

It’s the little things that unravel me.

A weird look. A short response. A change from “normal.”

A cross word can fuck up my entire day.

A bruise on my leg.

A lack of acknowledgment.

An unfair accusation will flatten me for days, months, years.

Being misunderstood.

Being accused of selfish motives.

Fucking up something small and relatively insignificant will completely derail me.

Asking for help and not getting it right away makes me feel like a burden.

Put me near a drunk person and I am in a total panic. Hypervigilant.

Don’t ever say to me “I need to talk to you about something…later.”

I will fester, perseverate, obsess, freak out.

“What have I done wrong?”

Am. I. In Trouble???????????

The slightest hint of dishonesty sends me running for the hills.

And so on, and so on, and so on…

I need to retreat. I need to escape.

I swirl into dark dismal places where all of the past hurts, all of the pain, the abuse, the confusion, the inability to trust my own instincts, and fear, all spin in my brain. My heart cracks open, again.

I feel sorry for myself sometimes. Not in a pitiful way, more in a “Fuck me, it’s been a long haul” kind of way.

I question if I will ever be able to have friendships, and relationships, where I trust. Where I don’t feel like an outsider or a burden, or a fuck-up.

There was an episode of Weeds, the tv show, where a drug cartel leader had his goonies take a palm sander to a snitch’s face.

Yeah, totally gross.

But I so often feel like someone has used that palm sander on my entire body, inside and out. My nerves, my psyche, and my soul feel so utterly, irreparably raw and exposed and damaged.

I feel scraped and frayed.

I grieve. I feel such deep sorrow.

I feel hopeless. Alone.

Afraid of my own feelings. My damage.

I am sad. I am angry. I’m frustrated, confused, and floundering.

And when I get here, I begin to cry. And sometimes I don’t stop for days.

Because I am a person whose feelings come out of her eyes.