My Brain is Broken
Or maybe I'm hungry
Hey Dad,
I had a dream with you in it a few hours ago. In it, you were alive and I was talking to you about whether or not you wanted the Cosco membership renewed. Did we want to use my credit card or yours? You said yours.
The topic (Cosco) was irrelevant. What WAS relevant was you were alive again. Not still alive… but alive again. I didn’t question how you’d died and come back from that - not to mention coming back from being cremated - I just talked to you about something so insignificant.
I am deeply concerned that a part of my brain has not accepted your death. I clearly know you are dead in every rational part of my mind, but apparently there is a part of me - somewhere in my subconscious - that does not accept that. My brain appears to be broken.
I think I am in deep trauma. I have been through another part of my life - reliving my sexual and ritual abuse memories - where I had “severe PTSD”. That’s what the shrink called it, anyhow. I called it freaking the fuck out. I don’t like being labeled.
I think I may have PTSD again. I had no time to process how sick you were, all of your falls and hospital trips, all my helplessness…. then your death, moving all of that shit, dealing with the funeral, cremation, etc. I could not stop. I did not have any help. I just had to go-go-go.
Now that it is quiet, lonely and I have time, the trauma is surfacing. I am numb, feeling helpless, and having strange dreams like the one I just had.
I don’t know what to do. When I was in recovery for abuse, I had people around who knew because they had lived it. There were books. There were meetings. There were people who gave a flying fuck. I met people at the meetings who had recovered. They were my greatest inspiration and they ARE the reason I recovered. I saw people who had been through ritual abuse and torture and were not only not falling apart, but they were ALIVE and living. One of them went on to start a motivational company and speaks around the country. I thought if they could do it, so could I.
And I did. I learned to forgive myself for all of the stuff that happened with the ritual and sexual abuse. Not a damn bit of it was my fucking fault. I don’t just know that, I feel it. I never thought I’d live to see that day.
But now there is no one to talk to. I am trying to process this alone. There is no group. No phone list. No retreats. No meetings. I’m either going to figure this the fuck out on my own or I won’t.
There is another thing - when I recovered from abuse I still had a life I wanted to live. I was still young and there was still hope. Now I am an old woman who has lost most of her ability. Now all I want to do is finish my time here so I can see you and the rest of my family again. It’s not so much that I want to die as I no longer want to live. There is a huge difference, and the reason I was to leave this world is because I miss you all so much. I don’t understand why I didn’t die after you did. Why am I still here?
I guess I just have to live with this for today. Maybe it will pass. Maybe it will not. To repeat myself, I’m either going to figure this the fuck out on my own or I won’t. And if I don’t, then so be it. I have to let go of the outcome. I can only do what I can do for myself, and if I fail, at least I fucking tried.
Why the hell I’d dream about something so mundane like a Cosco membership with you is beyond me. Why didn’t we have anything else to talk about? Like… how is mom? How are you? How are my aunt and uncle? Did my cousin’s children find peace after my cousin killed them? Did you see any of my cats? How about my grandma? Did my abuser grandpa try to come into the mix and you told him to go fuck himself? I miss you all so much (except him). As good as the hotdogs are at Cosco, who the hell cares? I must be very hungry. I am still starving myself some days.
I miss your mom, too. I hope you all are hanging out.
Tori Amos asked in Silent all these Years “Do you think there’s a heaven where some screams have gone?” I don’t know, but if so, there are a lot of mine there. Her line keeps running through my mind. Hell, I don’t even know if there is a heaven at all, but something deep inside tells me we will meet again.
I think that may be the only thing that keeps me going right now: the slim possibility that I will someday, sometime - in space and time - see you one more time.
I miss you.
El