Alone in a Crowded Room

I feel so alone. I don't know how to explain it. It's not like I'm ever actually alone. And even on the extremely rare times when I am physically alone, I am never alone in my head. And yet I feel incredibly alone. I have friends, online and in RL, and they talk to me and I talk to them but I don't think they have any idea how I feel or all the things that happen behind the scenes. Mostly this is because I won't tell them. I just can't afford to let them in. The warring factions in my head don't want interference. It is very difficult when so many parts of me want to feel better, to get better, to be better and yet so many parts of me know I don't deserve to feel better. There is so much hatred inside of me, for me, about me. I want to hide. I want to be invisible. I want to die. But I don't want to hurt my kids and the people who care about me. And I don't want to admit to feeling so dark because it would first of all get me into trouble, secondly hurt the people I care about, and mostly it would destroy the things I most cherish. It is ironic that trying to be everything I want to be is the very thing ripping me apart. I want to be home for the kids. I want to be influential in my writing groups. I want to be Baby-Mommy's shoulder to cry on and the only one who knows how to take care of Baby.

And yet I know the swiftest way to recovery would be to immerse myself in these horrors that I have been rejecting for as long as I can remember. As the shrink would say, to destroy the Wall, all of it, all at once. Remember it, feel it, accept it and grow out of it. Radical acceptance, he calls it. I can't accept what I won't experience or remember experiencing. But that type of immersion would take me down. I would not be able to function while drowning in that pain, even if I knew I could rise out of the ashes like a phoenix.

Although that would be the quickest way, it is not the way I can choose. I cannot drop out of my life for the time it takes to fall down and stand up again. My children could not have me disappear for a while, every moment is critical in the life of a child. If I were to shatter, even knowing I would heal again, Baby-Mommy would take Baby away from me and I would never be able to regain that relationship with her. And every moment is exponentially critical in the life of an infant. I think everyone else would understand or at least not be destroyed. But my children, including Baby, mean everything to me.

And so, the best I can do is take this ever so very slowly and try my best to hang on tight to everything I hold dear. Every moment is a labor of pain but done for love. I wish every moment of every day for the peace of death and do not really trust myself to keep my body safe from the damages of my mind. I have no doubt that I will burn my flesh again, though I may not mean to. I will likely cut and scratch at my skin until I draw blood, though I may not feel it at all. I may even take pills that I ought not take, though it would not be done lightly for I strain against that with everything I can and the force to be so drastic is weaker than my will to protect my children.

It will be a long path to recovery, piece by piece, two steps forward and one step back, but it is the best I can do. I know my best is not good enough, not now and maybe not ever. But it is my best and I can only pray it will suffice. I don't want to look at the things behind the Wall. And every time I do so, it tears at my heart and my will. I know I have no choice so I will do what I must but I am scared. Perhaps, if there is a conscious God, He will bring me home instead of bringing me to this pain. Or perhaps, He knows I deserve every moment of the pain and more.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..."