How do I explain myself, I’ve been avoiding writing as I’m once again lacking confidence, I am unwell.

I have never felt this unstable probably due to having more self-awareness of my C-PTSD, abandonment depression is a thing and apparently, that’s why I feel hollow. I’ve felt like a shell for the majority of my life. A vessel for emptiness, searching for something to fill a void. 

I’m thinking of how the dog is anxious and on anti-anxiety medication maybe he has PTSD too, mum denies it but she denies it generally, like my childhood trauma or my feelings. It all adds up I feel like I was set up for bad choices from the get-go this neglect and loneliness and lack of safety lead me to the path of the bar being nonexistent I didn’t know about healthy relationships or respectful interactions I expected and willingly received the worst. 

A domestic abusive relationship is done, sexual assault on 3 accounts done, traumatic childhood done.  Not necessarily closed, but finished in a sense of it being a foreshadowing of character development. As a character always developing I am stagnant, a trapped soul in a personal hell.

I am a cleaner at a local college, living with parents that are triggering and unloving, all during a pandemic while my dad suffers from blood cancer. This is a wank deal. I’m grieving the living and my past self. Trying to calm my inner child when my parents argue and stifling emotions due to their incapableness of witnessing them.

 My dad refuses to see me cry, thank god he will be dead at his funeral. 

I’ve wished for his death for years as it’s the simplest direct way of closure, I know this and he is more of a stranger than ever, the customer service roles in me creep out when conversing with him. It’s easier if I imagine I’m getting paid for it. Not that shocking to type that as the marriage is in their mind transactional rhetoric. I feel like I have heard unconvincing lines like ‘I love your dad really’ or ‘I love you,’ but that feels like a mockery or parody of their relationship as it’s full of resentment. One simple interaction of the location of where the butter is in the fridge is reciprocated by my clattering of pans or a more dramatic close of a drawer. These choreographed moves over time become infectiously ravenous in the subconscious of a child, it understands those cues mean unrest or potential shouting and lack of safety - ultimately fear. 

Trying to explain this sensation of anxiety and hyper-awareness to two adults who deny the trauma caused or relentlessly belittle mental health problems until suicide is mentioned is exhausting. I do not exist to convince. I should just be able to be. But here I am explaining myself to no one as this is what I have learned to do, to justify my feelings I must explain them into oblivion, imagine if I just accepted them? That’s what you get when your mum doesn’t respect you saying no, or you’re uncomfortable as a child you have to make it so believable you begin to perform. And here I am feeling like my yes or no was never respected or listened to as a child of course consent as a concept or boundary felt alien, unworthy, not needed, I was a shell after all. 

I can’t even have a wank as they are never both leaving the fucking house, the repressed sexual child all over again, pretty sure this stifling of my erotic will equal to heady nights to come when lockdown is over. I want good sober sex with connecting individuals I want to be desired and desire others. This absence of men is cold turkey, I notice when male attention comes it’s only after an image is published, a curated visual of when I felt desirable. 

The chaos, the chaos is the peaks and troths that guided my childhood that I seek in adulthood, it’s predictable and soothing to me, un-learning this will be the biggest feat. the last man I felt deeply connected to threw a blender across the kitchen and then declared he wasn’t violent. I deserve better, I deserve consistency and to be gaslit again with my guard down hurts me still. But it’s the chaos I crave not the man. 

We are triggered, we are tired, and we are not having a fun time. (me and the child within) But there is always hope for a better time.