Jump to content
Some browsers are having difficulty with functionality. Please try an alternative browser, if this is happening to you. If you are having connectivity issues beyond this or or need assistance, email us at: aftersilence.moderators@gmail.com! ×
After Silence continuing intermittent maintenance--Click here for latest updates ×

Via

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    33

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Via

  2. Via

    Lone Wolf

    By Via,


    Healing
    I know they always talk about how important it is to have a support system.
    I don't have that.
    I can't talk to my mom because she doesn't know, my husband doesn't want to talk about it, my best friend has her own stuff going on and I respect that, and my therapist--who is great, when we meet--cancels a lot and is always late.
    All I have is me. And it is really really lonely. 
  3. Via

    Normal

    By Via,


    Normal
    You know when you just want so badly to be a normal person, but no matter how hard you fucking try, you can't? 
    I don't think I'll ever be normal. My relationships will never be normal. My sex life will never be normal.
    I don't want extraordinary. I just want fucking normal.
  4. Via

    Dear Amy, who knew

    By Via,

    Dear Amy,
        I don't know why I decided to wait this long to write this (and never send it to you) but here we are. I realize you had a lot going on that year personally, I really do, but you need to know that the way you treated me was not ok. I was the child, you were the adult. Now that I am the same age you were back then, I cannot imagine behaving the way you did towards any child.
        I had no one that year--no one. You knew that, and you put YOURSELF in a position to become my surrogate parent. YOU did. Not me. You watched me try to work through things alone and knew things no one else knew while I was crashing and burning. You saw me come in day after day with puffy eyes from crying all night and, without prompting, suggested I get a mask shaped ice pack to help. You knew I was stressed as fuck and called my house when I didn't come to school because of it, got my assignments via email at 3am on a regular fucking basis, and witnessed the desperation I had but was hiding as well as I could. You saw it.
        The worst thing of all was that you knew. You fucking knew. You sat up there on your high horse and made that giant speech about how to are required by law to report certain things as a warning. Where the fuck were you on this one? I don't know what your thought process was here. Maybe you thought you were protecting me, and if you had asked me if I wanted help, I would have said no. And I would have been so pissed at you for years if you had reported it. The thing is, this is why ADULTS are the mandated reporters and the children are left to make the decision. Did you really think I had it all under control while I was sitting on the classroom floor, curled in a ball, having a panic attack?
         Here's a tip most people don't know: no one, whether they are 15, 18, 33, or 52, handles being raped well--ESPECIALLY alone. This is a fucking fact. I used to think I handled it wrong, like a child would vs how I perceived an adult would, but that's not true. How I handled it was exactly the same way most adults do. It's a fucking struggle, painful, unforgiving...but it's much easier WITH HELP, with someone on your side. You were the ONLY adult who knew. Just you. And you chose not to find me that help.
         Instead you took turns caring about me and being there, and then imploding like a petulant child with giant tantrums AT me like you hated me. I have spent my whole fucking life managing people like this--people like you. It was not my job to manage your emotions. And I just sat there and took it because by that point I hated myself so much that I felt that's what I deserved and had to put up with if I wanted to keep anyone in my life who cared about me. Even after you left, you continued to respond in unpredictable ways to connection--either caring, or completely berating me when I had done nothing to provoke it. Then I would apologize to YOU because you were all I had and I was afraid.
         But you know what? I don't have to put up with anyone's bullshit. I don't deserve it. And I don't have to be perfectly agreeable and walk on eggshells all the time to be worthy--to be loveable. I'm worthy as I am. I am enough. I did not deserve to be treated like that by you or anyone else. I deserved so much better.
         I'm never going to send this to you. I honestly don't think you're the kind of person who takes responsibility for things, ever. I don't know if you're better or not but I expect if you are and you wanted to take ownership, you knew how to reach me. But I hope that you are. I hope that you're happy now. I hope you no longer leave a trail of destruction behind you as you walk away anymore. It sucks not being happy--for both you and everyone else, apparently.
         I hope I never see or talk to you again. But I do hope you're happy.
    Now please fuck off.
  5. Via

    Nope

    By Via,

    This year has really just sucked. This week in particular has really just dumped it on. We are in the US and I know we are one of the last ones to implement changes to combat this virus, but they announced yesterday that our schools will be closed until at least April 14th. This is fine, but our jobs still exist so it's a fun little game we are playing trying to organize everything. It's necessary, I agree with the restrictions and they should probably be tighter, but it's very stressful. It feels like we are living in a dream.

    I also had a mammogram last week, a follow up from one I had 6 months ago to check on a suspicious spot. They told me it was still rated as suspicious and that I would need to come back again in 6 months. I have a strong family history of breast cancer so that's the concern. Honestly I also have a lot of dense tissue and I'm not that overly worried about the lump. However, my GYN, who is very old school and has to be talked into early screenings typically, called today and wants to refer to a breast surgeon for a second opinion since the scan was iffy both times. They have already called and made the appt for me and I have no idea if I should even go to this during this shut down time. I logically am still not overly worried about the spot but that was a lot easier to say when I had 6 months until it was something to be anxious over again. I'm worried now that I'm wrong, that the second opinion with the high risk experts will lead to something else, and then I'll be dealing with this. In addition, today one of my friends who has been battling metastatic breast cancer for almost 2 years, checked into hospice. 

    This year started out with my aunt's funeral. I was sick that day, which turned into bronchitis, then pneumonia with multiple hospital trips and concern/tests for pulmonary embolism, and two months later I'm still struggling with after affects. During those two months my kids each had strep a week apart, my son got a virus which also lead to pneumonia, my husband and I both got poison ivy and required steroids and I'm still on them now which is 1000% not helping my anxiety, and my daughter currently has a stomach virus. This year has just really sucked from the beginning. I am so insanely anxious. I feel myself on a verge of a meltdown and can't really stop it. I typically go to therapy while my kids are at school so that's on hold for the most part now as well so...that's helpful. 

    Fuck 2020. That's all. Stay safe out there.
  6. Via

    It's Complicated

    By Via,

    So, shock to me, didn't actually discuss any of what I thought we would this week at therapy. She asked about something from the week before and it divulged into a discussion about my father and growing up. He was not physically abusive to me in any way but he's the biggest narcissistic in the world and that was very often emotionally abusive.  We have a much better relationship now than we did before and he's still a jerk sometimes, all the time to my stepmom but they have been married 25 year and that's the boat she chose so I can't help her get off of it at this point, she's on her own. But as I was explaining my dad, the therapist was shocked and I started to feel bad for badmouthing him. Like I overplayed it. But I really really didn't, it was all true and I even left some major things out that were worse than what I had mentioned. But even though it was all true, it still made me feel bad. I don't know if it's because our relationship is better now or what but...it did. I realize that a lot of how I process things is tied into how I grew up, but who's isn't? I get it. And how he treated me, my mom, and my stepmom wasn't okay. Is it okay to acknowledge that it wasn't okay and still feel bad about talking badly about him? It's very conflicting for me. 
  7. Via
    A couple weeks ago I started therapy, mostly for anxiety in general that has gotten worse over the last couple years. I haven't discussed this particular event with my therapist yet. I put it on the introduction sheet as an issue I needed to work through. She went through the sheet at the beginning and asked about all the items until she got to that one. She said "is there anything else?" and I said no. I appreciated this at first because I didn't really want to discuss it that day and she can obviously read. But I think it's honestly giving me more anxiety waiting for it to be brought up than it would have to just bring it up right then.
    This week she asked me to think back on my life as a kid and my relationships and how emotions were dealt with by the people I was with, both with me and with each other, by themselves, etc and how that may have shaped how anxiety comes out for me now. "Come up with some ideas." I said okay and left, knowing I didn't need to really think about where the anxiety came from. I know where it comes from. I was a straight A kid, played all the sports, never really failed at anything. Not tooting my own horn, I don't really think it's a good thing to not have failures, because you don't learn how to handle it when you do. Then my sophomore year of high school, one event ruined it all. My SA was basically the first time I ever felt like a failure, like I was weak, and damn did I spiral after that. Dropped all my sports, dropped all my clubs, got 3 jobs instead. My grades maintained but the way I handled the work changed. Instead of addressing work when I got it and putting effort into it, I would wait until 11pm the night before it was due, down one cup or coffee after another while writing a paper or whatever, finish whatever the assignment was, email it in and not go to school the next day. By senior year I came to school late, left early, and disappeared for an hour at a time from the campus completely in the middle of the day. Our school was small and I was generally reliable with assignments so I guess no one was concerned, even got a B in a class I showed up to MAYBE 50% of the time. I made erratic choices about who I dated, where I went, how I behaved out with friends. I developed a new fear of heights I didn't have before. It wasn't because I was afraid I'd fall, but because I was afraid I'd make a split second decision to jump--a feeling I didn't really think was not a normal feeling until a year or so ago, just assumed that was why people were afraid of heights. This honestly continued through college, probably until I got married and with us moving all the time, we stayed so busy since then that I haven't really had time to spin out. But we've been here almost 3 years, which is longer than anywhere else, and no move on the horizon, we're done with kids, and now it's just piling and spiraling is easy to do without something to put all my mental capacity to. 
    Anyway, this has been me working through this so that when I go back next week and have the conversation about it, maybe I will have worked it out enough to not be a wreck.  maybe.  doubt it.  but hey, one can try. 
×
×
  • Create New...