Right Now Capulet vs. Small Child Capulet
Entry posted by Capulet ·
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It would appear that I have two sides. Two faces. There are currently two versions of me - and while it’s been suggested/confirmed that I do/have suffer(ed) from a personality disorder involving multiple other versions, these additional ‘parts’ have become silent and have grown otherwise dormant at the very least.
Now I am currently faced with just two opposing sides of myself that are currently attempting to form a coherent connection. Or rather, to integrate, if that description even fits better. Furthermore, I am wondering if it's more of a one-sided effort on the part of the adult version of myself. I'll explain this further, don't worry.
I've recently shared the information that I'm about to discuss in this entry...and I know in the past, I've shared other bits and pieces of what I recall about childhood, but my thought process is CONSTANT, (imagine the hamster in his wheel, it's always going and going and GOING) and I'm always searching for alternate perspectives on the same matter. It's mostly so that I can understand on more levels, even if others have difficulty following. I need to thoroughly investigate these things, and by writing/posting and re-reading what I've put down, this affords me the ability to both gain perspective from outside parties as well as to have it available to me to refer back to when I finally hit that brick wall that is repeatedly thrown into my path toward understanding myself as a whole.
So, who am I?
When I say I am two-faced, I am not referring to the negative version of the term, which is most commonly described as being the type of person who would smile at you one moment and then stab you in the back as soon as it was turned.
No.
This isn’t me. I know that and you all, I’m hoping, know this too. I am kind, I am caring, I am loyal and I am compassionate. This, I know for a fact - I couldn’t intentionally hurt another person. I have killed before but my victims are primarily of the eight-legged variety and it’s usually done by way of a shoe or rolled-up newspaper - even so, if it’s within my capacity to do so, I’d sooner scoop them up and toss the spiders outside. But that’s pretty much the extent of the harm I could cause another living soul. I’m more inclined to help someone else if I can - especially in situations where the pain they are enduring is a common, familiar one.
My conflict is with myself, basically. The much younger, child version of myself that is flat-out REFUSING to share with her older self what she knows/has been hiding for years.
You see, these are two equally as powerful forces, despite the age difference - the adult is stronger in the sense that she’s already gone through a fair amount of healing. She understands the effects of sexual assault, whether it’s a constant thing or a one-time thing. She has facts to support her memories, she has a deep, accurate understanding of the aftermath, of the emotional roller-coaster that we, as survivors, are forced to ride.
And then there is the child, who although she’s young and without the same level of understanding, she’s been working hard at being an impenetrable fortress of information; she’s managed to keep in place these enormous shields - and to keep them there for thirty-five years, give or take. She’s effectively locked away and kept things from people around her, from her parents, from her teachers, from psychiatrists, from friends, and even from her adult version, the single person she could likely trust the most, but still isn’t willing provide the key to at the moment. And for this great amount of time, she's stood her ground - doing whatever it was she needed to do in order to protect this information from whomever she felt the need to fortify it from.
The right-now Capulet is whom you’re all familiar with. This is who you see, who you talk to, whom some of you converse with regularly. What you see is what you get. Right-now Capulet was raped at the age of 17. She can give you accurate details about that - for she remembers every single moment of that night where her world was shattered and everything came crashing down, every minute she laid on that cold, wooden floor, every second that took seemingly longer to pass than a mere second. She can tell you how that floor smelled, what was on the computer screen, she can tell you of the rusty barbells that were also on the floor, just out of her reach, and how she’d briefly considered using one to fend off her attacker. She can tell you how helpless, how defenseless she felt when she couldn't. And furthermore, she can tell you how this single event has absolutely everything to do with the person she’s become, nearly 22 years later. She is still more comfortable conversing online than she is in an in-person social setting, but is open to working on learning how to get through these hurdles in the near future. A lot of right-now Capulet's struggles are a culmination of being hearing impaired (especially the socially awkwardness) and having been sexually assaulted as a teenager, then dealing with a number of abusive situations on top of this - it all adds up.
And then we’ve got the small child Capulet who, while she’s done a VERY good job of blocking out details that she knows are true, she’s had moments of weakness - evident only because the adult version has managed to obtain tiny little snippets and fragments that somehow seeped through these shields - perhaps they’re not untraversable as we originally thought they were. Or perhaps, throughout the years, they have weakened some or have otherwise lost some of its original strength, comparable to expired medicine. Either way, right-now Capulet is aware and further convinced of there being something of importance behind these shields. She knows it's likely ugly and thus the reason for these shields being there in the first place. Yet, she struggles with an insatiable need to know the truth, no matter how grisly it is and how damaging this information has the potential to be.
Why, though? Aren't I doing well enough without these added bits and pieces to my already overflowing plate?
I'll attempt to explain this before wrapping up this entry - been working on it for HOURS, already - my brain hurts. Thinking I'll go to Dunkin' for an iced latte. Or maybe not because it's raining and I don't desire to leave my house this morning. Either way, I'm rewarding myself with something sweet, something sugary, once I've posted this. I fucking deserve it, don't I?
But anyway, here goes. I think that these little fragments - these little memory snippets that I can't make sense of right now, are pointing to something that although I'm without evidence, I can't completely ignore, either. Just as I couldn't overlook these signs if I saw them in someone else, particularly a child. These snippets/fragmented pieces that I AM privy to, are strong ones. Kind of while piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, you have to complete the outside border, first. I would say I have a fair amount of that border in place, but nothing in the middle. It's a whole lot of emptiness. Each of these broken memories I possess is a a piece here, a piece in the other corner over there, a piece in the middle of the bottom...etc. While they're different pieces in different locations, they're all a part of whatever the finished picture turns out to be. So right-now Capulet is sitting at the table, trying to get this puzzle completed. Small-child Capulet is not supplying the missing pieces, and although I've tried bribing her with the things I KNOW she loves, I've gotten nowhere in the acquisition of said pieces. Instead, it's 'HELLO, brick wall!' This kid has major skills, let me tell you. I've been at this puzzle for a long time, now, and have gotten nowhere.
Another thing I struggle with that is likely contributing to my desire to get to the bottom of it all - I also want to know...(no, I NEED to know) - if anything having occurred in my childhood led to what I'd later on endure as a teenager - what kind of shaping/forming/grooming took place at such a young age? What happened to small-child Capulet that caused her to lock up and hold onto the key for a lifetime afterwards?
And all of this is likely stuff that a therapist would get giddy over and likely see an opportunity for some major dollar signs. “Come to my office and we'll figure it out, we'll get some answers!” I’m sure they’d say in response to this blog, should they come across it. And I've actually just pictured the face of my old T...followed by a brief image of her clapping her hands. She used to clap in order to get my attention as a child. I remember not liking to look at her sometimes, and so she'd 'clap' or gently rap on the tabletop to get my attention so that she could speak to me.
But sadly, I’m not in a comfortable enough financial situation to seek out a GOOD therapist. I've had the same aforementioned therapist twice. She met the small child version of me when I was approximately eight years old, as well as the adult version when I sought her out about ten years ago and I was going through a divorce. Both times, she's failed. I likely wouldn't have considered going to see her ten years ago, knowing she wasn't successful in breaching small child's walls, but I'd hoped that she had some memory or input that she could share with the adult version. She either did know some things that she wasn't comfortable sharing right away and maybe wanted me to work up to remembering at a slower pace rather than just dump all of this information on my already mounting reasons for concern, (and for this reason, I agreed to continued weekly sessions) OR she truly knew nothing - either way, I had some issues stemming from the dissolution of my marriage that she WAS in a small way, helpful with. But for these deeper, more pressing issues, she was proven ineffective and not helpful and I felt as if I was wasting money. And so, I stopped visiting her altogether. I still do have her email address and I've considered sharing some of my recent writings with her - just in case she does know something - but then again, maybe it's best that I not do so. She's one of those who would ask me to come in for a session and I don't feel I should have to pay for this information.
And now, here I am. With the same concerns. Minus the marital problems - my current relationship is healthy, secure and wonderful - no complaints there.
As far as I’m concerned, I AM my own therapist. Anything we’d do in a T’s office, I’m perfectly capable of doing on my own. I talk, sometimes too much. I write. Also too much at times. I think. If it helps me, who's to say that's a bad thing? I spend entirely too much time thinking, I believe that too, has been confirmed. However, none of these are unhealthy ways of coping. They're just what works for me.
I also want it to be known that I am NOT in crisis. All this is just stuff that until recently, I’ve kept in the furthest confines, the deepest corners of my mental health closet - and I've recently come to open up this closet and begin searching for deeper meanings to these two sides...one side who wants to know everything and the other who wants to keep things suppressed and hidden.
How do you get these two sides to work together? Is there some way to reach a compromise? What does small-child Capulet need, and from whom if not from the older, more knowledgeable version of herself??
I'm not sure anyone knows the answer to this, either.
And so, I'm not sure who is going to win this ongoing tug-of-war battle. The adult will pull and pull, and ultimately grow weary and tired. Then the small child, who's got a comparable amount of strength, will pull back, by way of solidifying these shields until SHE'S tired or otherwise feels safe. This game may go on for several more years. Possibly for the rest of my life.
While it's way easy to look up cheat codes for some of the console games I play, this isn't something I can search for a shortcut on, there are no guides that I can follow, no secret twists and turns or jumps that will catapult me onto the other side of those shields. I'm stuck on this level and I'm not seeing a way to get through it.
And for that reason, I feel defeated.
And now, I'm going for that coffee, even if I make a cup in the kitchen. Not feeling Dunkin'.
- Capulet
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