hiding, hiding, so sick of hiding

self-doubts are rampant tonight, almost to the point of self-hate. so many times over this long, wiery life, was told how worthless i am. it's not a surprise i learned to hide. it's just a cruel bonus to suffer from along with the physical abuse.

a trigger response to the ones who laughed and push me away, this face i put on says i'm brave, and i stay. but the smile i put on this face, if the pain reaches too deep, lips quivers and threaten to collapse into tears. so i hide, don't dare let them know that i agree with them and just stay in this skin, somewhere, hidden and scared, somewhere within.

ironically, i'm hiding behind humor right now. devil-may-care, impish, playful, but knowing it will eventually flip over into the dark side, the abyss awaits. so i hide. it would be heaven to have a day where the light shines above, and the laughter that escapes out is free. but i'm too scared to even laugh, to bring on that familiar feeling of being ridiculed for doing it. every time something good has come my way, there's always been someone to try and take it away. so i learned not to expect much, to not aim too high, because the fall would break me, i would want to just lie there and die.

alone so many years now, it's survival to hide. can't get close, can't trust, can't even know why, i've held all this in, it's too much to bear, so why can't i say, begone, let me live without fear!

it's not going away, have i just hit a bump in the road? without dps i just can't have any hope. her incredible support chats are slowly beginning to allow me to see, that what was once hidden, i can face and maybe be free?

i just don't know tonight. it's all too much to handle right now. found out my former client is in MICU now, waiting to die, and my new one sabotages me to get me to leave. last night she continuously tricked me, oh i wanted to leave! and it's not my paranoia, the case worker knows and agrees.

i'm trying so hard to stay strong, to live through each day, i know it's up to me to do this, to heal and also somehow to get through the pain. can i be allowed tonight to have doubts and feel "small"?

anyway, thank you for listening to this rambling ole gal, i've faced worse and survived, maybe just forgot how. but i'm hovering and running and fear facing what's within. i'll stop now, just needed to reach out, never done that before coming here, am so scared, but i feel safe here somehow. and my biggest fear? that's easy, that some day *i* will just finally "slip away"

.........................

oh dear, i need to clarify something, i also have hope because of ALL of you dear people i have met here. i meant that dps has, with her chat outlines, given me workable instructions to start learning how to heal. they help me finally address the heavy issues and how to deal with them. the one i am painfully working on now is the one called: "Trusting Yourself".

life doesn't come with instructions and it's a godsend to finally get a set!

ohh all of you mean so much! and i have each person's name on a piece of paper that i put in my "grounding box" so i can look at them and remember each one of you and know you all are here to help and support and i pray that somehow i can do the same.

i just hit a "bad patch" as they say, last night. it will get better. thank you for being here, ALL of you here at PC.

I just wanted you to know that I hear you, that you have been heard. I hear that you are in pain. I also wanted you to know that you are Amazing! You are a hero. You helped your body survive. You are a survivor. You are wonderful. And for all your uniqueness, you are so valued, most simply, for just being you! Thank you for being part of PC. Thank you for sharing your pain, and in doing so, helping someone else not feel so alone in theirs. I hope you find something so that you may not feel so alone in yours.

kp

((((((((((Dancing)))))))))))...We are here. Much of what you write, I feel deep inside. I too learned not to expect anything good for myself, for fear someone would take it away or ruin it. It happened most of my life. I also learned that outward appearance of stregth and togetherness was a great place to hide the scared inner person that I am. I have alot of trouble trusting...you are not alone, my friend.
From one "ole gal" to another....many safe hugs and I am listening....

Thank you for your post dancingalone. I admire you for reaching out. I know there are alot of us who feel so alone. You write so eloquently! I also admire how much you can feel, much of the time I go into being numb because it feels too hard to bear. Its so much better when we can feel especially for our healing. Thank you, you are not alone.I hope that a hug is okay.....Kasva

aaaah, Dancing, but not alone~~ please put my name in your grounding box~! surely all of us who hide share more than we can imagine~! perhaps we'll meet in that Secret Garden, where no harm can enter, and no joy can remain unfurled~! ~~~~~~ Gus

((((DancingAlone))))

Thank you for posting and for reaching out. Sometimes when we feel so low it is hardest to reach out but that is when we need to reach out the most. I say that because I usually do not want to go to see my t on therapy days and it's when I do not want to go that I need to be there the most and it usually helps. So I hope that you getting this out there helped to relieve some of those feelings you feel.

I know that feeling of self-hate that seems to come in so many times and take over. The feeling that I am not worth anyone's time and those old tapes and messages start to play all over again and sometimes they play louder than others. But they are not true and you do deserve to be heard and cared for. So many times that feels so false as it is so foreign to us all and it is hard to go there.

Hiding is something we all learned to do to keep everyone from knowing that anything was wrong. For so many of us we were told that nothing was wrong, it was in our minds, or it was just a bad dream. Truth is it was not a bad dream and in order to keep going we hid so that we could somehow fit in outside as we could not fit in inside, trying so hard to keep the peace that so many times never really came.

Self doubts make sense as we learned well to self doubt our own sense of being and had no choices to make any decisions other than the ones that allowed us to stay alive or keep going. Self doubts as even now sometimes comes as if this is even true--did it ever happen. For us we were told we dreamed it or that it was normal so our own thoughts never seemed to be anything we needed to pay attention to for somehow they were wrong.

If we smiled no one knew and no one got in trouble or at least at that moment. A smile kept everyone at bay, kept what we were hiding a secret. Kept us safe at least for another moment. Why would we not think that if something good came it would go away. It always did at least in that time. To us good was a fairy tale that only happened in books. Good was something you got in payment for something they wanted. The good was too high a price to pay.

Each day we live and reach we take back another piece that was never theirs to take in the first place. Each day we live we become stronger than the day before. We are suvivers walking to healing and though it is so hard, we will live through the memories as they cannot kill us for we already lived through the event.

Yes, you can be little and give to yourself that comfort and understanding you never had then. Keep reaching out and know that you are not alone. Know that you are being heard and that you are cared for and loved. Thank you for being brave to write and let out what you need to. It is important how you feel and you are not alone.

Not sure any of this makes sense as I feel I am writing from someplace above, almost reaching down and thoughts seem to be not only my own. So will stop writing for now. We do understand what you are saying maybe more tonight than we want to admit. Thank you for posting. Sending you gentle hugs and loving thoughts. Love you. Always.

dps

oh i am one deeply humbled old lady tonight, reading and rereading your wonderful posts of support. this place is truly awesome and a blessing i never though would come into this tired life.

dps writes:

Each day we live and reach we take back another piece that was never theirs to take in the first place. Each day we live we become stronger than the day before. We are suvivers walking to healing and though it is so hard, we will live through the memories as they cannot kill us for we already lived through the event.

i need to put this on my wall! the pain comes from the memories of course. and the actual events are over now. we must move on, they can never take anything else away. and as we become strong, the imagined hold that may linger will eventually become a whisper on the wind, and then gone.

Yes, you can be little and give to yourself that comfort and understanding you never had then. Keep reaching out and know that you are not alone. Know that you are being heard and that you are cared for and loved. Thank you for being brave to write and let out what you need to. It is important how you feel and you are not alone.

i vow never to stop reaching out for answers. some days will be worse or better than others. but knowing people who "know" is working miracles, and being able to let out what i need to is a blessed miracle and the relief is immense.

and yes, i know that feeling of writing "from above" i think my hand is guided at times by help from somewhere to be able to express what i need to say. it's a protection i value and don't take lightly, and am sad when it goes away.

thank you all, you are true blessings to this broken soul who is trying to put the pieces back together.

Three miracles...

please forgive this ole lady for reviving my post of sadness, fear and despair, but i fell into the abyss again yesterday. it was lurking, ready to pounce and then suddenly there it was, and there *i* am, lost again. but this is also a writing of hope too, as i struggle to climb out again into the light.

on the 3rd i accidentally knocked my fairly new (10 mos. old) laptop off the table and destroyed the screen, no access to anything, no warranty to cover accidents. bought a display one on sale and what could go wrong did. (1st thing, it was password protected and store closed, the rest of the week continued in kind.) but last friday it was replaced with a brand new out-of-the-box one at a branch store. basically, lost everything two times. was just too much to take and have retreated belatedly, as is my pattern, to hold on during the crisis, then after it's over lie broken and bleeding.

but three miracles have occurred. someone posted a poem about not giving up and one line said "it's always darkest before the dawn". so i held on to that, plus you dear people here.

miracle no. 1 is that an item in some ads i have in eBay classifieds (free to list btw) sold. couldn't have been better timing as i had to use my carefully saved tax money for new computer. and an extra $20 to hold item for her.

miracle no. 2 is i talked today to that other store's manager, told him what all went wrong with computer #2 and the hours i spent online and on the phone to hewlett packard to try and fix it, and he said come in saturday and he will give me $50 back to my debit card.

miracle no. 3 had to write my sister (she, my bro**** and i are all three owners of this house i have the incredible fortune to live in--but i basically had to tell them both to leave me alone because it just hurt too much the way they treat me) for help with the taxes. she is SOBER now, she is applying for physical disability and workman's comp and is a changed person.

i thought, i don't care anymore, i'm going to tell her what is going on so she will understand how she has triggered me and how i need my own area of safety to be able to survive (she knows about the bipolar, but not the dissociative aspects, the awareness of them are new). but if we were to "begin again" she needed to know how to back off when i need her to.

she had just seen a program on Oprah about D.I.D. and said ***she understood*** she suffers with dark depression herself and my little sister seems to have matured into a wise woman. i do love her and have missed her so much. my photo here is with her son, my dear nephew who is 30 now and also suffers with bipolar disorder--he's in miami now finally getting the help he needs in a group home, sis never really understood i don't think but is trying!)

so we set parameters. i let her know when *i* go away somewhere...back into hiding, or fall into the scary abyss of monsters and evil men and she will stay away. we will only communicate through email, no phone calls. too close. too triggery. too scary for me to get close to anyone IRL anymore, even my wonderful neighbor. sis said she always is there for support, she will be my "safe" person. ohh, i cried and cried for this miracle over the years, for her to just give me space to breathe and hopefully try and understand this mental hell. still scared to trust tho, too many times deceived, but i don't want to lose this precious beginning.

anyway, just needed to share these things. am not as lost tonight but oh so sad, don't understand but there it is. hopefully this is for real. too many tears for only a week's time. trying to do self-care, loving you all, appreciating this place of hope and healing.

Two sisters, lost but now found...?

((((DancingAlone))))

Thank you for sharing and for allowing us to walk this with you. I know it is hard and sometimes things go wrong. But you did what you needed to do by setting the boundaries with your sister. That is hard to do at times but you did it.

I am glad you got your computer figured out and you are back on line. I know how stressful that can be. I am glad that the store manager is going to give that money back. And also the stuff on eBay selling. Things are working out.

I know that feeling of falling into the abyss that seems to be there sometimes waiting to catch us when we fall. The thing is you are climbing out and not staying there. Sometimes that is so hard when things seems to crash down on us. When it feels that breathing is almost too hard. But you are trying and that is really great.

Know that we are listening and care. Keep reaching as you can and posting. You are doing a good job. Hope the sadness will lift too. Sending you gentle hugs and loving thoughts. Always.

dps