I Hope its Okay That I'm Still Not Okay

Not ready to forgive and unable to heal, yet with no desire to quit or hold such resentment. I find myself in the exact same place of being unable to trust but wanting to, so badly. Your promises this time, so far, have stayed solid yet I live in fear that one bad day, one disagreement, one bitchy comment will make you remember when I just wasn't worth the effort. The effort itself makes me feel simultaneously worthwhile yet shitty. Someone is trying to make a change for me, trying to show me that I deserve love. But why would anyone have to try, why was I not deserving of effortless love in the first place? What made me first deserving of being disregarded and belittled? I can't tell if my reaction to the enormous pile of festering pain that has built was enough, perhaps too much or just right. If gut feelings are worth anything mine says not enough but I'm too afraid of letting out anymore. I've said all the words I thought I had until I felt I had drained it all out of my system. I cried until I couldn't cry anymore, rested alone and sad, then cried more. I reached out for support, I was held and have been treated with care. But it still hurts. It's not the pain itself, but the inability to make it stop no matter what I try. First powerless in my relationship and now powerless over my own state of mind I start to fill with rage. I bargain with a faceless higher power, "Why?! What could I possibly have done to feel so low?". Recounting every effort I've made on the grandest and smallest scales just to be good enough for everyone. It only makes me angrier. I want to yell it all at you. I want to tell you everything I've done right and how I deserved appreciation for it all. I want to hurtfully scream and break down, fighting my case that I am a necessary person. That I matter and life would not just go on without me. The problem is, I don't fully believe it and you seem to be in a place where you do now. This is the wreckage. While all the efforts to make the pain stop are needed and welcomed I still feel alone walking through my own mind. Ashamed that I can't just smile, that I'm still so on edge. Ashamed that I'm still crying inside and putting on a show on the outside because I don't want you to quit me. I can't let go of the idea that I'm holding it all up, but I know I have to stop.  I have to give this one sided love story a chance at being more rather than writing a lie in my head for your side of it like I have for so long. So many questions remain and swarm. How do I stop holding it up? How do I trust you to fix this? Where do I put all this anger that can't possibly be useful in saving us? I feel grateful in the moment for the changes I already see, and selfish to ask for more yet still I crave answers. I just keep digging at the wound and wondering why it won't heal. 

"We're just toxic together"

"I just think it's stupid" multiple times....

"Of course it was my idea, it's not like you'd suggest anything"

"Where is your ring?"

"Figure it out"

"It's not my fucking problem"

"I know you have a secret" 

......silence...so much painful silence...

"Why have you never worn that for me"

"Ask your boyfriend"

.....inappropriately laughing while I cry.....

"I just don't like anything about you anymore"

"You need to have more confidence"

"Get a hobby, or a job, you need to leave more" 

"Well yeah I love you, but only because you gave birth to our kids"

"I appreciate everything you do but it's not like I couldn't just do it myself"

"I'm going to make it better, I promise" (month ago, not now)

 

None of it healed because up until now it never stopped. 

Final Thoughts on a Wound I Cannot Heal

I want so badly to feel better and my body just won't let go. My mind has been molded into a servant of pain and can't seem to stop trying to compromise it's well being for the contentment of others. Food is the enemy and toxic behaviors are my solace. Smiles are forced while tears are unstoppable. You spend so long thinking if you could just bring to light what is really happening, if you just received a shred of validation then things would heal and quickly. But they don't. If anything the flood of reality pours in. Suddenly you no longer have any culpability in the situation and you know it doesn't fall on you to fix it. Not just feel it but know it. For a moment it's a relief and the painful existence you've been living makes sense, only for a moment. After the initial relief comes the knowledge that you now have to trust the person that brought you down so far to find a way to pick you and their self back up and start over. You find yourself in the midst of a thousand questions. How will they do this? What is their plan? What if they can't and the cycle repeats again? Can I live through it even one more time? Uncovering truths that needed to be seen opens new suspicions showing you a side of yourself you don't want to experience. A less trusting side that can't imagine ever feeling safe or comfortable with the person you adored. All the while holding on to the intense love that no longer seems to make sense. No one has hit me, because I would never allow it. No one has called me degrading names or forced things upon me, because I am on guard and protect myself. But the pain I've encountered I couldn't see coming. It happened slowly and somehow with calculated manipulation that even the person doing it couldn't see. Because sometimes people hurt you and they don't even notice. Sometimes they hurt you and they don't even want to, seemingly with no control. Because of this it goes on for so long....so long that you get lost in the place you let yourself get put. I no longer know who I am and I've been wandering through this place, lost and scared, completely by myself for what seems like an eternity. I don't choose to dwell, I don't want to cry or get angry. I don't even want to have to assign blame. I just no longer have a choice. As if my mind and my body had a private meeting, perhaps while I slept, and they decided it's time to crumble because there's no where else to go. My hands tremble, everything tastes like shit, I smoke cigarette after cigarette watching each puff of smoke come out as if it were my last breath. I don't have much faith that it gets better from here only because I find it impossible to trust that anyone other than myself can fix it. And I finally accept that I cannot. It sounds like the rantings of a person in pain on the cusp of making better choices. It isn't. It's a person who will wait a life time for the love she chose. A sad and broken person who knows what she has hasn't been good for a while, but that the alternative isn't any better. Loneliness will consume me no matter what I do so I hold on to a tiny shred of hope that I am enough. That you will see me some day for what I am, not just what I am but what I am TO YOU. That I can finally reveal all the pain without fear that it will scare you away. Hope that instead of quitting or running you see that all I ever needed was loved, held, protected from the loneliness even if you are literally protecting me from yourself. It's the last hope I have and I can only wait in pain to see if it's worth holding.