The Power of Nightmares

Things have been going good for me. My moods have been in order, I reconnected with my father (more on that later), work is picking up, and everything is good. Not perfect or ungodly wonderful, just good. Then in comes the nightmares.

I never had nightmares before, well I did. Thing is my nightmares have never been normal. Scary things like murderous teddy bears and vampires I have never classified as nightmares. To me they are simply a new creative idea to write about. They don't scare or frighten. What does effect me is the normal stuff, the bad dreams that awaken old wounds. They reach deep within and pull out the terrified child I once was—warped and distorted by sorrow and tragedy—and bring her to the surface. These nightmares play on my darkest fears of returning to become an abused slave to my family. Nothing stalls my heart more.

Last night I suffered from one of those dreams, and every time it happens I'm amazed at the effect they have on me. A simple fantasy movie playing outside in my head has the ability to alter my mood—shift my perspective on the world, and bring me down into the deepest depths of my own personal hell. It's not fair, but then life often isn't.

Usually, when something like this happens I spend a day trying to avoid it. Tired as all hell, I busy myself with silly tasks like cleaning, dishes, projects that I shouldn't be working on. Anything that takes actual mental power I avoid. I'm simply too tired to do it. After a day of being blah, I then finally start to tell my husband what my dream was about—what caused me to sleep without resting. I downplay the events per-usual. He hugs me, I continue to feel like shit for a few more days before the memories fade from my mind.

Today, I'm going to try something different. Today I'm posting about my nightmare—facing the events. Maybe that will shorten the length of my suffering. I doubt it will, but I'm stepping out into new territory. As I write this I'm debating erasing it and going back to house cleaning, but I refuse to run away.

Last night I dreamed I was being molested by family members while I slept. This has actually happened to me. Waking up and finding yourself in a sexual position with another person is one of the most. . . well, there is no words to clearly express how horrifying it is. Paralyzing, is a good way to put it. You freeze and wonder what you did to urge this person on to touch you in that way while you're most vulnerable. Knowing you're not safe while you're sleeping in your own bed. I wish that on no one.

That wasn't the worst part of the dream, nope. It gets so much worse.

When I went to my mom to tell her about what happened, she blamed me for corrupting the people that were touching me—for making them a sexual deviants. Then, she told me to get over it and grow up, it wasn't like I was raped. Just touched.

Saddest part is. . . My mother has actually said those things to me. I feel guilt over my own emotions because I haven't actually been raped by most of my abusers—it's like being half a victim. Not enough for people to give a full shit about. The middle ground is an awful place to be.

The dream went on from there with me trying to get out of my mom's house—trying to break free and having no where to go. Knowing I had no money, little to no real friends, and no one that could help me. . . I'm all alone in a horror movie—trapped by the people that are suppose to love and protect me—told my emotions—my pain, doesn't matter. It shatters the soul.

That's where I am today, shattered.

Cast against the rough shores of life, bloody, broken, and hurting in places no one can see. I'm in anguish. While I can have good days, far more than I used to, there are always these awful ones. The nightmares that plague me while I sleep, making me a victim all over again. I will continue to relive my past for as long as I live, but it's the hope and memory of better days that keeps me going. That makes it a battle worth fighting, even when I'm broken.

#SexualAbuseVictim #Fighting  

~Jax~

My Scars

Confession time. I don't claim to be a saint by any stretch of the imagination. I don't even consider myself a great person, though many would argue that I am. While I've had a lot of wrong done to me, and been put in situations that for most would be a nightmare, there are things I've done—things that I think of that make a lot of people stop and say, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Tonight I've had one of those thoughts as I sit here at my desk looking at the fading scars on my left forearm. I used to hurt myself. No, I don't cut in the way most people think. There's no razors involved, or knives, glass. . . Instead I run my finger nails, or a wire brush, or even a screw over the flesh of my left forearm. I run it over and over again digging the item deeper until the skin starts to break away. It's like a self-induced road-rash. Very painful even when it heals. Every time I've done this to myself it's weeks worth of healing—painful healing. There's the itching, the tightness when the skin gets dry, then the scabs. . . It's not pretty. A lot of people confuse the wounds for burns. Like I had some accident in the kitchen. The reality is a lot less pleasant.

You probably wonder why I hurt myself. It's complicated, but the main thing that triggers my self-harming behavior is the flood of emotion—emotions I didn't process when messed up shit happened to me. I get just that, flooded by everything and it's so overwhelming that I want to rage. I want to scream, and yell, and hit things. I want to put my fist through the wall—I want to break shit, but growing up that type of reaction would have landed me in a bad place. Beaten and tossed in my room to cry myself to sleep. So I turn my rage inward, blaming myself for my own emotions—for not having control of myself. As an adult when I turn my emotions inward I punish myself for the way I feel. I hurt myself.

I'm not happy about it, and I don't like to hurt myself. I don't like pain but physical agony is a lot easier to deal with than emotional agony. At least for me.

This behavior has changed in the last year since I've been working with my therapist. I rarely feel anger toward myself, and instead place it where it should be. On those that hurt me, and it's coming up on a year since I last harmed myself. Yes, last Christmas I had to wear long sleeves because I had a fresh bleeding wound on my arm. I had to hide myself away because I was ashamed of what I did, but even more so because I lost control and hurt myself.

Tonight as I look at the scars that are fading the fact struck me that in another two years those scars will be gone. I won't have blotches from my wounds, and that saddens me. I know, that's weird to confess even in writing. But I will miss my scars and I want them back. It's enough to almost want to hurt myself again—to relive the pain so the scars back.

But why? Maybe I'm just fucked in the head, but hear me out.

I want my scars, the visible ones, because I'm wounded. No one sees the damage beneath the surface—the ugliness behind my smile—they don't know the battles I've faced, and how much courage it takes for me to open my eyes every morning. If I wore my every wound on the outside I would be covered in scars. . . I would look like the warrior I am, and that's what I want.

For people to see my damage and know I've survived, but more than anything, I want to see it. To be able to look down and see my past laid out before me—all the horror of it and know I survived the darkest of times. I don't want to forget how strong I am when I start to doubt myself. I want my scars—They are mine.

#BeautifullyScarred #Warrior

~Jax~

Playing Santa

Memories are funny animals, they pop up whenever they please. Maybe memories are cats? 

Either way you can never seem to get rid of them. You can try to forget and they might even disappear into your mental chatter, but they always find a way back. Even the silliest of little details pack a punch upon return. I know I've said this all before, but it still impresses me what the mind is capable of.

While wrapping gifts this afternoon I ran into a problem. We were out of tags, and it brought back the memory of what I used to do as a kid when I ran out of tags. Or because I was a kid, poor, and didn't have money to buy pretty Christmas tags. Instead I would cut a square piece of paper and tape it, white-side-up, to the gift. Then write on it. It made me chuckle at how clever I thought I was as a child, and for some reason the memory shifted to Christmas Day. Reading those messy written tags. 

I'm sure everyone plays a version of this game on Christmas, where you have one person play Santa. They're the one that hands out all the gifts under the tree. My mom always picked me to play Santa, every year. I hated it. Now you might think that's silly.

Why would I hate playing Santa?

I had a BIG problem with reading and writing growing up. I muddled together an ability to read on my own, but up until high school reading simple things was very difficult for me. At times it's still difficult, but it doesn't stress me out as much. My husband is very supportive of my struggles. My mom on other hand. . . Not so much.

She knew I had problems readying the labels, and reading handwriting was even worse for me. So in front of the whole family she would declare I would be the one to play Santa, and while I stuttered along trying to read the tags the best I could everyone would laugh at me. I would struggle and struggle or give people the wrong gifts until someone got upset and took over. Every year—every damn year I played Santa, and I still hate it till this day.

Why shame your child like that? Why make a public mockery of them?

I don't have a clue, but it wasn't just at Christmas this happened. This embarrassment is something I had to live with in other areas of my life. Mainly in school and when my mom would volunteer me to do the readings at church on Sundays. The only time she ever put the spotlight on me was when she wanted to embarrass me.

I believe this is the reason I stress myself out about being perfect—I avoid awkward or embarrassing situations like a plague. Which is sad, because I used to be a goof ball. I would do the silliest things, jump into any new experience and if I made a fool of myself. I didn't care. I had done something new and exciting. Now, new things scare me. The idea that I might not be good at something paralyzes me with fear. 

Little things—the smallest moments in life make a big impact. A distasteful joke, a second of wrong action—they matter so much. Being embarrassed by my mother on Christmas Day doesn't mean much on it's own, but when you look at all the other times. . . When you take a look at how often she teased me, embarrassed me—they add up, and they matter. I'm a damaged person because of it. I hold myself back because I'm mortally afraid of making a fool out of myself. If you live in fear, it's not a life. My mother took that from me, and now I fight every day to get it back. Piece by piece.

#LittleThingsMatter #SmallMoments #BigImpact
~Jax~