By the Skin of My Teeth

I have no support network. Nothing solid, anyway. Nothing that would reinforce my hold if I should start to lose my grip, and the way I’m pushing myself…I have to wonder.

What’s my problem, anyway? I’ve isolated myself from my friends, tightly controlling every opportunity for interaction. I’ve lost myself in this incomprehensible drive to excel. I’m drowning in self-analysis, thinking in ever more dizzying circles. I’ve pushed away my whole family, although in all fairness this has probably helped more than harmed me. My every interaction with them has been unsettling, unsatisfactory, demeaning and irritating for many years. I’ve never fit. I’ve never felt accepted or in any way understood. Am I expecting too much? With all the emphasis I’ve heard on family lately, I have to wonder if I’m not being unrealistic in wanting to feel valued and accepted by my own blood. How far do I let them push me before I push back? Am I justified in keeping them at a distance just because they make me feel shitty about myself whenever we interact? Is it my fault that I feel like an outsider? Am I the problem?

I’ve just tried so fucking hard for so fucking long and I’m SO FUCKING TIRED. I know now that the reason I assume everyone dislikes me — or at best, is selfishly motivated or self-deluded in their affection for me — is because I have had to work so tirelessly all my life to feel accepted by my parents and siblings, and they still treat me like a retarded freak of nature or a crazy person on the verge of a breakdown. I was a good girl! I was the best student, cleaned my room, practiced my piano, made the right friends, got involved in the youth group, taught Sunday School, got a job, avoided wearing black or applying too much makeup because it’s what I had to do to satisfy them. I got approval sometimes, glowing and effuse, but too short lived and never of me directly. My accomplishments were all of me that was of any value. My tongue was too sharp, my temper too short, my manner too bold, my skin too thin, my heart too hard…the ‘me’ I was was never good enough and she never let me forget it. I simmered the whole time. I hated them so hard it literally gave me nightmares; zombie-Mom stalking into my bedroom to regard me dolefully with sunken eyes, the bare bulb on my rosebud lamp illuminating the knitting needles I instinctively knew I’d run through her brain. That one haunted me a long time.

I remember wanting them all to die. I fantasized about catastrophes that could separate me from them; kidnapping, car wrecks, plane crashes, hurricanes, earthquakes. I spent most of my adolesence wishing I were elsewhere or dead. I was too young to know whether that was normal or not. I still don’t know. I wrote a lot of poetry about death and lay awake at night wishing I had the guts to slit my wrists. The pain was real, I know that much.

Part of me believes I ask too much of others. I hold them to the same impossible standards to which I hold myself and it’s not doing any of us any good. The few friends I trust are distant and busy, and I tell myself that it’s okay, I’m strong enough to hold my own. I don’t need anyone.

But I’m smart enough to know that’s not true. You can’t tell me centuries of philosophers waxing poetic on men and islands and armor and love had it all wrong, and one half-educated, mostly nuts, almost middle-aged woman knows more than they do. That’s absurd. It doesn’t stand to reason, so my reasoning must be flawed. Wait…no, it’s my conclusions that suck, and probably because I skipped over the reasoning part, jumping from emotion to emotion all willy nilly just like I always do. I hear my mother’s disgust. They all think I’m stupid or crazy or brainwashed. They don’t know anything about me, and they never will because they just don’t have the capacity to see me anymore. They see only a failure to be who I was supposed to be. I wrote once that I suspected my mother is disappointed that I didn’t turn out to be the daughter she’d hoped for in the nine months before she met me, and I truly believe that. I think she tries, in her own way, but it’s not enough. They don’t hear me. They don’t see me. They don’t know me. Why do I keep trying? Why does it matter? Why can’t I just let it go?

Why can’t I just be done already? I just want it to be over. There’s no reason for me to be here.

I’m so tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired……………………..

Because I post here, I don’t really have anything to post here. I might try someday anyway. . I don’t accept notes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t comment.