Monthly Archives: August 2012

Blame

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35

Blame

It seems to be something I have battled with for a long time. Not just me, but others like me, I know it is common to feel the blame and to look at myself and say it was my fault. After all what else do you have when you are a child and don’t understand how people work. Someone’s hurting you; It has to be your fault right? 

I still can’t get passed this and I have tried. I was writing a couple of days ago and it wasn’t until going through it, that it really clicked in my mind that this particular incident was the moment blame took up residence in my mind on a permanent basis.

I was seven years old, it was the middle of the day, and it was daylight. So much different than normally, when it was night time and dark. I could close my eyes then. Pretend that I was asleep. I believed that if my father thought I was asleep then he didn’t know, I knew what was happening. Then he wouldn’t look at me in a way that showed my shame. If he thought I was asleep then neither of us knew what was happening. I believed that my father didn’t know what was going on between us and if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t look at me and hate me for it. If my eyes were shut and he thought I was sleeping, he was reading my brother and I a bedtime story, then neither of us was aware of what was happening.

However, the part I was going through happened in the day and I did something else at the same time, so it appeared I still didn’t know. My father wasn’t reading and I was awake. I didn’t leave the room. I didn’t say no to him. I didn’t stop him and I don’t know why. I could have done. I’m certain that had I got up off the bed and left the room he would have let me.

This is the moment when my shame became blame. When I started the truly hate that child. He didn’t stop his father.

 

***

I understand if people reply to this, they will say it wasn’t the child’s fault. It was the mans. He was the adult and the boy was a child. That’s because no one ever blames the child.

Suicide.

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Suicide.

I read an interesting blog post about this today, from another survivor. I say another survivor which is really a lie. That person is a survivor I am not, I just didn’t die that’s all and there’s the difference.

The blog however was insightful, for the first time I had seen, someone saw it the same as me. She planned her suicide date as her fathers birthday, a bittersweet revenge perhaps? Where as mine would be when my father has not talked to me for a while and I’d hope it took weeks for him to learn of my demise. I’d want him to know that he didn’t have the right to be informed. He wasn’t top of the list and he’ll miss my funeral.

Of course before anyone panics, I’m not going to do it. It’s a mere fantasy. I can thank my children for being here and taking away that option. I’ll admit sometimes I get mad about it. It feels like I’m trapped here when all I want is for it to be over. I come close sometimes, but all I do is imagine their faces. I imagine them alone with no one to be there when things in life get too bad. When they just need their dad.

My father is not taking that from my children. I’ve been there for every moment in their lives and I’m going to keep being there, even when the days are hard, when the pain inside is so bad I’m begging almost for it to be over.

I’ve tried before of course to end it all, clearly with no success. The first time I really recall I was seven. I lay down in the bath and just didn’t move with my head in the water. I think I almost did it too, I floated away inside my mind, the need to breathe had gone, and my saviour, ironically was my father and his belt.

I didn’t really try again until my late teens, but I had no fear of death. I took risks, I didn’t care, if death was going to claim me I was going to tease it. It didn’t work of course. Even when I almost died at sixteen some part of me wanted to live.

I’d got septicaemia. It was a loving parting gift in a way from my fathers actions, that I’d been too ashamed to deal with and I was found with no temperature and hardly a heartbeat, my friend didn’t waste any time in calling an ambulance, he even called my father who refused to show his face, he was simply too busy at work to deal with his son that was being rushed to the emergency room.

I was eighteen the next time I tried. I’d landed myself with my special needs son because his mother couldn’t cope and I’d just lost my second child to the cruel hands of fate. I walked out the hospital completely broken, not hearing anything passed the doctors words that started I’m sorry. I spent two weeks getting drunk until I tried to slit my own wrists. The unfortunate timing of another friends visit soon blew the end to that one, but kicked me onto my downward spiral of illegal drugs.

A year later I tried again to end it. A come down from a concoction of drugs and nothing to live for except a son who I was failing, I necked a bottle of pills. I was sick for days after. Funny really I always thought there was no escape when you tried that way, but seems my body wasn’t playing.

Twenty three was the last time. My life was happy. I’d met a nice girl. My son was doing well. There was a new baby on the way. I’d been clean from drugs. I had a job, was going back to school. I had everything, but the pain inside I’d spent my life running from. That agonising sadness that’s nestled deep within my chest was so consuming that I felt helpless. It was a letter from my daughters mother that stopped me. She didn’t know of my past, but she had read some of my writings and she replied to one. I’m grateful to her, she saved my life in so many ways, she’ll never know.

I haven’t tried for a long time since these. Not even when I lost a second daughter. I think about it. It’s in my mind every day. The sadness is still there, but now it’s nothing more than a pleasant fantasy.

Something I keep on the back burner. It pops into my head at random times. When I’m driving, I think, just a quick flick of the wheel and I’m done, it’s over. When I’m out running, what if I just closed my eyes and ran, would a car hit me? Would it be quick?

Then I think of my children. They are better than any sadness I feel. In selfish ways when it feels too much, I let them make me smile.

Dreams

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2

Dreams

Funny things, dreams. Everything from calming pleasure that brings a smile to your face to breath taking horror that leaves you for a moment wondering if your dream was real or not.

Seventeen minutes of sleep. That’s it. I wake startled, jump up so fast, my breath catches and my heart pounds and just for a split second I’m a child and the bad mans here.

Of course he isn’t, not really. Not anymore, but my mind doesn’t seem to accept that. Vague flashes of some dream go through y head as I try to decide what’s real, what’s a memory and what’s just made from years of fear. My hands are shaking and my hearts racing so fast as my eyes scan the room over and over, sure that any moment something’s going to happen.

I lie almost still except for the phone as I tap out my thoughts, my body’s expecting. The anticipation in my mind like an attacks just around the corner. Already I can feel nails, teeth. Fingers wrapped in my hair holding me in place while I scream and no one listens.

I wish it would stop. I wish I knew for just one night what it felt like to feel safe enough to sleep. I’ve never had that. I can’t even escape into my dreams. He haunts me there. I’m tied. Mentally, how great it must be to climb into bed, pull the covers around yourself and enjoy the silence of a safe and peaceful moment.

I don’t ever remember feeling safe at night. Not ever. Not once. Always huddled in the corner, watching the door and waiting.
I try and tell myself that it’s not real any more. He isn’t here, but my body’s taken over by the fear of a five year old, all because I had a bad dream.

I feel like I’m in a room filled with snakes, stood in the middle, trying desperately to keep both feet of the floor; with every possible part of me hidden as I imagine the feeling of their bite. It builds up so big inside that I’m sure to explode with the fear and perhaps it would be better if it was just over and done with so I could find some kind of moment to relax a little.

All the while as I write this,I lie here and wonder, maybe he’ll be real again. Maybe tonight he’ll come, because tonight, I typed this and talked.

 

Truth in Anger.

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8

I haven’t written for a couple of days, I guess I can feel it and it’s probably that, that feels like its weighing on me somehow. I always feel better when I have written, so far now I am doing it here and saying whatever comes to mind and hoping that somehow I can lift this silence I feel right now.

It would seem that my father has actually got the message to stay out of my life, funny really, I thought he would be upset and hurt, but he’s quite the opposite, he’s angry and telling anyone that will listen how bad I am, and what awful things I said to him, which I didn’t of course. I simply told him that I was tired of being hurt and because of that I didn’t want him to contact me anymore.

My brother has just moved house, just over a month ago into his first home. My father has told him that he isn’t allowed to invite me to the house warming party. I’m not to be there as part of his family and at Christmas myself and the children can get lost and they get nothing because he washes his hands of me. He has told people that it is him that made this choice not me.

I thought I would be bothered about him doing something like this, but in truth, it’s just made me angry at him. I’m angry that he would dare to tell my brother he has to stay away from me. I’m angry that he thinks he still has some control. But I am happy to be angry, it gives me focus. It removes the guilt that I felt about walking away. He makes me see him properly.

Thank you father, for letting me see the real you.

Walking Through Fog.

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I wrote today, not just edited, but wrote a little, it was for part of book three. I don’t know why, it felt good though, somewhere in my mind I have been hiding, but I hear the whispers inside. Maybe I am coming out of wherever I have been, I’m not really sure. It feels like my mind is bursting with a story to tell once again, but at the moment it just goes around in my mind.

I’m not sure if I’m getting better on this part, or I’m just transferring it to another condition. I know I am fighting at the moment with my OCD. I am sure people don’t believe me when I tell them I have it. I think there’s a stigma to it and people use it so often that it’s like a joke or a term for some to throw around, but I was officially diagnosed with it in 2006 when it was so bad, that I could not live.

I cope with it now, it flares up on occasion and I have to find out why, my mind shuts down and I can never just say, such and such is on my mind. I’m at that point at the moment. My hands are sore; I can’t get my skin clean. I’m fighting the need to make the words feel in my throat as I say them; I don’t want to sound like I have some odd tick, because I have to repeat a word just to feel it, so I fight it and try not to, but it’s there, like a lump in my throat I have to scratch. I make myself feel my breathing in my nose, all these things tell me I have something going on, but I don’t know what it is yet. I’ve detached still, I can feel it, or not as the case may be. I know I have easily lost myself in the world of fiction; it is a good escape of course.

Everything feels numb, like I’m not focused in the real world. I don’t feel like I am real. It’s very hard to explain, and I probably can’t do a good job of it. It feels like the world is moving and I am not. I can hear myself talking, but I stop because the words are not mine. I am not me.

It’s the self harm that does it, or contributes to it. I think I self harmed a couple of days ago, but I can’t remember. Even this morning seems like I was somewhere else. I feel like I’m walking through a fog and I can’t see.

Floating

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Floating

I’m floating somewhere, endless hours spent staring out through eyes that aren’t mine. I’m trapped inside a body with no escape in a place filled with people that I see truthfully, I see behind the facades that they portray, their smiles, jokes, jibes. I see the person, I hear the tick, tick of how they work.

I feel like I’m walking on the outside of life and I’m looking in. My eyes aren’t blind to acts each person continues to show, they are sad.

Maybe one day everything will click inside of me and I’ll know who I am. what I am. Why I am supposed to be here. It feels like I’m running with no destination, no purpose.

I’m lost and I don’t fit.

If your reading this, maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about, I guess I don’t either. These are nothing more than the thoughts in my head as I try to get myself back.

My mind is fuzzy and I’ve detached. It’s like I’ve woken inside myself and someone’s taken over and lived as me for one day, two? I’m not sure. I have glimpses of things, but where I went I’m don’t know.

I self harmed I know that, I vaguely remember letting go, but was it yesterday or the day before? It all feels like a daydream.

Many things led me to that point. The fake friends from my last post. I was grateful that one emailed me and apologised, I understand what the motives were, and I have respect for the admittance.

The other one, I had to look at what happened and why. It hurt to be lied about and then lied too. It hurt furthermore when I saw doctored evidence in a bid to clear their name that certain things weren’t said about me, but I had the original for comparison.

While I stared at this I learned my father had told anyone who will listen that he has now disowned me. That I’m nothing and he’s washed his hands of me. He’s told people I said some nasty things to him and he’s sick of how I am. So we’re done because he doesn’t want to be hurt by me any longer.

In truth, it was the other way around. I asked him to not contact me any more.

I’ve had to look at these three events in this one week, I’ve hidden from the pain and wondered what it is about me that makes people lie.

The one that lied about her age, I get it. I understand, she explained things that I already knew.

My father, it’s his ego I suppose, his narcissistic need to be the one that’s suffering. He can have this one, either way I get what I wanted, I get peace, in a way it’s better. He lifted my guilt of walking away, because in the eyes of our family, it was him that left.

And the other, the one that showed me evidence of a conversation she’d had, but fixed it so it didn’t read the same. I’ve had to ask myself why, what was the reason to try and gain my trust with something else that wasn’t quite true. I don’t think it was to hurt me, if that was the case she wouldn’t be trying to dig her way out of some odd mess we found ourselves in. The motive perhaps is so I didn’t get mad and tell her to leave me alone. Maybe I am wrong I don’t know. It puts me in a strange place, while I’m upset at the dishonesty, I’m not mad, nor angry, if anything I’m a little sad that maybe she thought I would be cruel in the end.

I guess I forgive them all in different ways, because I understand their motives. I’m just sorry these things happened. I’m sorry I can’t fix those things and I’m sorry I can’t fix whatever it is about me.

I know the outside package, while I cannot look in a mirror, is not ugly to the outside world. I wonder if it was, would people stop hurting me?

Fake Friends.

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Fake Friends.

They come in different shapes and sizes. They wear different masks and their reasons usually point to an insecurity in one way or another.

I have acquired many friends through the internet and social networking; I have also acquired fake ones. I think perhaps over the net, hiding behind a screen is the easiest place to be fake.  I am not sure what the gain is.

I have encountered different varieties of fake friends. Ones that lie about themselves; say they are 39, when really they are 52 years old. Say they are athletic and trim, when really they carry a little weight on them. I understand this kind of fake identity. It’s the insecurities of the person you’re talking to that are ashamed in some way of these things. But in another way, it also shows a lack of respect. I feel insulted that someone who claims to be a friend would feel the need to lie. Do they think I would stop talking to them because I knew the real things? I am not that shallow. The sad answer is that I would be their friend regardless, but now what I have is lies.

Then there is the other kind; the more hurtful, devious kind that rips you to pieces when you’re not looking, but smiles sweetly when they see you.  I am not sure I understand what they gain. If you don’t like a person then don’t be their friend. I don’t see the reason to spend the time being nice and then later tell everyone else what you really feel.

I was sad to learn I have one of these and while I know putting my books out into the public will get different responses, good and bad; I don’t expect the bad ones from those who claim to be friends.

This person openly praised my books; wrote a review and talked to me with care and compassion. But, sadly, this same person said some very hurtful things to someone else who,  in turn, retorted with phrases like “He will get over it when he grows up and becomes a man.”

It hurt to learn that this friend discussed me with another victim;  not of sexual abuse but physical abuse,  and compared  and dismissed me as if I should just get over everything. Believe me, if it were that easy, I really would do it.

I have been accused of being sarcastic, short, and of making comments that are of a sexual nature, in private. I know that I haven’t done these things, but what hurts is to be accused.

What is so hard in this situation is that this person talks to me as if none of these things have  been said.

I wish they would just leave if this is what they think of me. Why be my friend?

I have wondered if this makes me a fake friend too because I will not confront them about it. But I will not tell them I am hurt.

I will not hurt them as they have done to me.

Out of my Mind.

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Guilt

I guess the blog flash thing didn’t really work for me. I was doing it, I was enjoying it and I hoped that in many ways it would help me use my voice, even if it was just fifty words of random nonsense. But then it went; I guess most of the reason is because of falling out with my father. It seemed to stop me in many things, and I was already struggling to talk, I think it just made it a whole lot harder because I feel guilty about it. I’m writing this and I can feel my mind telling me to be quiet, no one wants to hear, not even myself. But I set a time limit, to just write and see what comes out and that’s what I’m going to do before I start my day.

I woke this morning to many notifications on Facebook, from a group of people that had seen my book trailer, made by a dear friend and fellow author, Azure Boone, and their reactions to it. Their responses were so heartfelt and made me feel the same way I do when I read reviews, that I can never find a way to really thank people, but on the other side of that, I feel like a fraud. Like a liar. All these people giving me caring and understanding. They say they want to save the child, hold his hand, look after him.

I want to ask them why? What do they see that I don’t? Why don’t they see how bad he is? Why don’t they see that it’s all his fault? I want to smack my hands over his mouth and tell him to shut the hell up about stuff that no one should care about. He’s nothing.

I joined a writing/author group of wonderful people a few weeks back, they are all so friendly, and I love each one of them. They make me laugh many times with just the randomness of the conversation, but it has crossed my mind to leave the group. I know it’s just Facebook, and like them I am just another person hidden behind a screen and the internet, but I feel how genuine they are. I feel their laughter and smiles, I hear their words. I know the warmth that is there and it scares me to be part of it.

How long before they look at me and realise I am not like them? How long before they see the real me and cast me out? I don’t deserve to be in there with those wonderful people. They have such a freak hanging out with them and they don’t realise it.

I’m a man who was once a child that brought out the bad things in his parents; I’m the same man that’s just told his terminally ill father to get out of his life. How do I live with that? I’m trapped between the guilt of a child and the guilt of an adult.

This is random I’m sure, my mind flits over many thoughts. Thank you for reading.

Blog Flash Day Nine – Journey.

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Blog Flash Day Nine – Journey.

Today is a weary part of my journey, I feel it dragging, but I’m trying to keep walking forwards. I feel my decision weighing heavy inside, more like a sigh than regret. I’m trying to heal and trying to get better, my hands are healing at least, that shows maybe today, though it feels bad inside, it’s not so built up. My hands got so bad that I had to treat them. Every time I moved, even just to drive, they bled.

Blog Flash Catch Up.

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Blog Flash Day Four – Busy.

Kind of an ironic title for this blog flash, busy, I certainly have been and why now I need to catch up on days of this, mostly it is because I haven’t felt so great, a falling out with my father.  I will try and catch up all in one blog post, maybe that is a little cheating, certainly means I can have more words, but I’ll try and string it all together in one hit.

 

Blog Flash Day Five – Frustration.

That is where my father has left me, frustrated. I don’t know if I can carry through with the walking away, it feels hard, inside my heart feels heavy, he doesn’t even know the turmoil I feel right now and he created it. Do I stay or do I go? Will he even care? I’m sure he’ll think he does if I was to say to him, stay away from me, but can I really bring myself to say these words?

Blog Flash Day Six – Reading.

I love to read, there was a time I could devour anything up to five books a week, sometimes more. I would walk around with my book, reading it, I’m lucky I didn’t fall down any holes or get run over. I am addicted to the written word. They take me places like nothing else. My reading time has been taken up by writing time, but I don’t mind. I just hope my words can mean as much to someone, as others have done to me.

Blog Flash Day Seven – Sunset.

Sunset, it’s one of those things; I think people love, no matter who they are. Sunrise is my favourite personally, but I love the sunset when it has been a hot day, which of course, the fact that I live in England is rare. When I was a child I used to love to sit and watch the sea and the sun go down. It was one of those times in the day that was a perfect creation by nature.

 

Blog Flash Day Eight – Relaxing.

This one is very much the opposite of my day, there was nothing relaxing, though I did have a good laugh with some friends on Facebook, but I got to sit and get time to do every little. Of course I couldn’t even relax to sleep. Twenty minutes and I woke from a nightmare I don’t remember. Some days feel harder than others, this was one of them.