Sunday Writing Prompt #243 “Core Beliefs”

It’s all my fault.

A few days ago our sofa was delivered. Sam scrambled to find the bungee cord we use to tie open the front door so that the wind wouldn’t blow it closed when he and the deliveryman were carrying it inside. He couldn’t find it. My first thought “Oh my god what have I done?!” Sam wasn’t angry with me. He adapted to the situation and nothing was said about the missing item but I was instantly imagining scenarios where I might have misplaced the bungee cord or worst case scenario thrown it away. The next day I looked all over for it, trying to think where I might have put it. I remembered thinking how annoying the bungee cord was and how it often fell or got tangled on items hanging on the coat rack. More than once I have thought about moving it but I remembered deciding against it because we keep it by the front door for a reason. Still I went on doubting myself because I have Dissociative Disorder so it is always possible I have done something without remembering. Sam was going to the store to pick up storage boxes that day and I admitted to him that I could not find the cord. His response “I think I used the cord to tie down the tarp on the grill.” He didn’t realize it had been bothering me. At no point had he been angry about it or even suspicious, he’d simply forgotten where it was in the heat of the moment. I blamed myself though. With Dissociative Disorder comes severe memory issues. I don’t trust myself. If I feel sick I am never fully convinced that it is real. I think maybe this is just stress, maybe I am trying to avoid my responsibilities or sabotage myself in someway that I am not consciously aware of. I second guess my actions, my thoughts, my motives, my feelings. I am never quite sure of myself, which wrecks havoc on my confidence and my self-esteem.

I imagine that having any form of mental illness makes you question your perspective continuously. I am always testing reality. I frequently pinch myself (actually I touch my tongue to one of my canines) to see if I am awake or not, particularly when I am getting off the bus just to be certain I didn’t fall asleep. As an adult I have never fallen asleep and missed my stop. If someone says that something didn’t happen the way I remember I will usually accept their version even when the evidence supports my version better.  I imagine it also has to do with being abused as a child, children assume responsibility for their abusers. 

I understand intellectually that blaming myself isn’t doing anything for my emotional health. I am certainly not a more effective problem solver when dealing with all that guilt and paranoia but I really don’t know how to trust in a mind that plays so many tricks on itself. It is a continuous battle to stay connected to reality. No reality is the truth really, it is all perspective and there is no way to be 100% certain. I guess all we can do is remain open and curious and see what happens instead of imprisoning ourselves within our own certainty/uncertainty.

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Prompt #80 “Unforgiven”

I hollow from within

A child, a wheel, a flame

Fed on the ash of a love

That could never burn.

No one giveth to me

Least of all you

A family that birth

Could not conceive

Breeds in me, an enemy.

 

If you need an alibi

I will absolve your vice.

A burden, a grave unsung

A dream that cannot

Be forged from blood alone.

I watch you walk away

You will never know

The torment in which

I have grown, a terror

Never know the shadows

Fingering, as a corset

To silence my breath

To silence my truth

Which is contrary

To your entitlement.

 

This hirsute womb

Is all that I am

Too empty to atone

Too empty to consolidate

The conditionals

Of this reality.

Of each of my lives

You have taken

The better part.

Within each of my 9 hearts

Another tower, another hell

To be undertaken without

The aid of hammer or spade

I bury my roots deep

In the filth of everything

I have let decay

I bury my roots deep

In the filth of my fleshless bones

This nothing that I am

Will never taste the salt of mercy.

*

I have forgotten how to write, I feel like a newly hatched chick or something

Epithet

I was not prepared to exonerate praise

I am subcutaneous, an indelible will

That feasts on skeleton keys

And condemnation

I do not know how to be loved

Much less distinguished

*

My lips deny the passage

Of stereotypes but sincerity

Is impossible to exclude

*

Curious but oft nullified

By an aversion to ceremony

I am gripped by your candor

But the epithet does not integrate

With my own diminished esteem

*

For many, including myself, praise can difficult to reconcile with self perception. I sometimes find myself completely bewildered by compliments. I’ve even looked around the room when someone is being complimentary in order to locate the subject! On an entirely different note my vertigo had subsided to a nice generic dizziness but this morning it returned full force.