According to me there’s nothing to say but I’m still saying it. For hours on end, for days, for months and almost a year I have debated if it’s safe to reach out. All I can conclude is that it is not safe and will likely lead to more pain. It has been almost a year since she has reached out to me and let me know she secured a counselor and a year since I ignored that message. I guess admitting I ignored it is my attempt at accountability. Still, I look to hold myself accountable for what somebody else did to me. That’s how I know I’m not healthy.
Did I ignore it? Or did I think through the potential consequences of responding and determine I couldn’t handle it? Couldn’t handle the effects on my emotions, the consequences of the instability being reintroduced into my life. The triggers everywhere.
I have an appointment with my NP in the coming days and if she asks me “What happened?” to precipitate this breakdown I truly don’t know that I have an explanation. Whenever I think about my estranged family or going to work I have a panic attack and spiral into self loathing. For me, that’s what defines my depression – the lack of faith in myself.
I’m not sure where that comes from. My average for getting through hard days is 100% as someone once said. Maybe it comes from being abandoned as an adult child and believing deep down there’s something to their idea that I’m just Wrong. Something’s Wrong with me, I’ve been told. Is there? I don’t know for sure myself, if I’m honest, so I ask good people what they think.
So that’s what it comes to. If you’re reading this, I don’t reach out because I’m afraid. And you might think that’s a personal failing on my part when in reality it is a consequence of a failing on yours. Ice cold emails with nothing redemptive or apologetic in them mean very little. There is no progress without vulnerability. If someone can’t bring themselves to say I love you, then do they?
Ironically I have been mostly cut off from therapy due to not having enough money which means I get less support in going to work and making money. It’s a noose tightening and threatening to cut me off from my lifeline, the one space that I have to work out things for myself. Well, one of two spaces, because I consider this blog to be another form of therapy. Putting parts of myself out there for others to experience and inspect. Maybe find a bit of similarity in it.
I feel like survivors of abusive parents often don’t know how to figure out where the line is for ourselves partly because we have been taught from childhood not to trust our own internal guide of what is right and wrong for us. I know what is right for myself is peace and the presence of those who respect and love me. Lately it’s been getting harder to open myself up to the idea of others accepting me. I’ve been focusing more and more on the absence of those who seem to care very little if I’m around or not. What a ripe pile of stimulus for my depression to feast upon. Part of what I write is letting go, sharing it with the world so that I can unload just even a small bit. Thank you for taking the load on.
Queer Pandemic 