It's been four years since I've been that low. But, that once was enough. The term scared straight comes to mind. Such an abysmal a failure are the systems we mirthfully convince ourselves help people. Once you catch a glimpse of what help entails, you'll never let yourself traipse that dark path again. You may have thoughts, but they will forever remain only thoughts thereafter. Too dire are the consequences. Unless, being denied food, sleeping on a hard bench and being drugged to incapacitation around positively disgusting masturbating men strikes your fancy.
Holidays have become dangerous curves in my landscape. Expectations of incredible joy mingled with a seed of demon nightmare. My family wields a blade, sharp and ready by Thanksgiving. By Christmas the meat cleaver becomes a sword. I am blamed for everything beyond my capacity. I am the bringer of all worldly woes. A hell bound whore, deviant scum and a abomination meant to be aborted. I am reminded and reminded. I remember my grandmothers grand imaginings. From outside the closet door, she spoke to me in the tune of verse that exists in no bible. She penned her own holy book. I believed it to be factual and law. In that prestigious document, she tore hope and dream from my being. I lay curled at the bottom of the closet, clinging to the small bit of light coming from the door crack and I listened. I absorbed. I believed. Her most toxic bile. Worst of all I believed. I was God's mistake to be corrected only in flame. Born of rape I should not be. My mere existence caused great family ruin. My every social faux pas a sin. As an aspie I make many social blunders and they are constant. She would set light to every instance to illuminate my every social failure. She damned me to forever question my every word to another person. To live in fear of simple speech. I am type cast in their lives as an unfeeling lunatic meant to be caged if not destroyed. Destruction is their innate delight and they do it well. I keep my distance as a result.
Children are meant to dream very large unfathomable dreams. I remember lying in bed and wondering what love felt like. What did it feel like to be really truly loved? Is love even real? To this day I remain unsure. I dreamt of things children should have. I dreamt of someone to hold me when I cry. A person who would simply allow the sadness to fill me and to hold me through it. To touch my hair and to show me they didn't hate me once my tears ceased. I dreamt of a life without constant consequence. No more scalding water. Never again waking to a pillow over my face as I slept. I dreamt of what might lay beyond our home, our town. My world was so closed to what lay beyond. My family disallowed me to have friends and to later date insisting it was just a way to invite the devil into your home. My life was restricted to my room and an 8 foot privacy fenced back yard replete with barbed wire garnish on top. That was what I knew of the world. I dreamt of travel, of other places and of simply more. I dreamt of a friend to share those things with me and the knowledge of how to make a friend. I wanted a friend most of all.
Holidays are very empty days. Christmas morning my boyfriend unwraps his gifts, the dog is given a special treat and then it's a day of tv and waiting. I pace a quiet home while my boyfriend lies comatose. I wait for the world to come back to life from it's underground state. It's a day of little to quiet the thoughts. Those thoughts can get bad if I let them, but I won't let them. Never again. I try to stay busy. I start a hundred creative projects. Keep the mind busy above all.
This year I have managed Thanksgiving, albeit very drunkenly. Not a great solution, but a seductively quick one. My Christmas this year, for the first time perhaps ever, had traces of life. I had a list to give to this year. I got three gifts from co-workers, a parade of treats from clients, and a very nice gift from a fellow fotc fangirl. My home is decked with Christmas cards from my fotc fan family. Christmas morning I awoke fevered and sick to find Christmas greetings from someone I never expected. Very slowly little sips of my dreams are trickling in. I am becoming more numb to the rule of my family. They read me the riot act Christmas day and I was able to let it go. Actually let it go. Their hold is weakening and my resolve to cling to broken people lessening. I dream of a place where the child and the adult version of me meet. I hold her as she has always wanted, as I still want. I hold her with total acceptance. I tell her how wonderful life will be. How wonderful she is, for she really is. How she is not wrong and most of all that she should just hang on to see it all. It will happen for her, for me, for us. It's slow, but it will be. So hang on. I tell her. Just... hang... on.
