Under Siege 3 - Thanksgiving
This house isn’t mine, but I’m responsible for defending it.
When I see the armed men approaching, I run inside and scream for everyone to leave or hide. I don’t know these people, but I don’t want them to die. The men with weapons know how to use them. They’re breaking down doors, crawling through windows, overpowering us all. I run from room to room but I can’t save them. I can’t save myself. They’re too strong. They’re…
I wake up from the nightmare and can’t fall back asleep..
I didn’t realize how deep it went—this total and utter belief that the world, and everyone in it, would be better off without me—until Thanksgiving this year.
Overburdened and resentful from hunting season and holiday travel, I wanted my own week away with no responsibilities and for someone to notice the effort it takes to be everywhere for everyone, carting my three-year-old and so much baggage in tow. By the time we made it back to my hometown for the holiday, I was taut as a rubber band pulled too tight, so it only took a few unhappy words and the ensuing passive-aggressive war between me and a family member to make it snap. That night I dreamt of armed men invading every corner of a home I was supposed to defend and spent the morning after Thanksgiving in tears while all my old tapes started playing:
No matter what I do, it's never enough. I’m never enough. What I want doesn’t matter. What I need doesn’t matter. What I need doesn’t matter because I don’t matter. No one hears me. No one hears me because I’m not worth hearing. I am worthless. I am garbage. I shouldn’t be here. They deserve better than me. Why can’t I be normal? Why am I always so wrong? What’s wrong with me? How can I live like this? I hate this feeling. I hate myself. I’m a piece of crap. I ruin everything. I might as well give up. I might as well give in because what I want doesn’t matter. What I need doesn’t matter. What I need doesn’t matter because I don’t matter…
After spending most of the day stuck in a shame cycle, I realized I am terrified. I curl up in a ball within myself because I’m so fucking afraid of owning my power because someone will tell me I’m WRONG. Or I’ll offend someone and they’ll question me and I’ll have to defend myself and I won’t be able to do it well enough, and I’ll be WRONG. What I want is WRONG. What I need is WRONG. Who I am is WRONG.
They’re coming at me from all sides—all the people who are RIGHT. All the ones whose wants and needs and desires MATTER. And they’re overrunning me just like they’ve always done, and I let them because it’s safer to bury myself within myself where their RIGHTNESS, their WILL cannot hurt me.
Because I’m terrified of who I am, of who they think I am, of hearing them—my people, the ones that are supposed to love me—tell me I’m wrong. Not just my wants and needs but ME. That I’m fundamentally flawed as a human. I’ve heard it all before and I’d do just about anything to keep from hearing it again.
I don’t want to hurt anyone and I don’t want to hurt. If I hide, we’re all safe from that. From me. From my WRONG-ness.
Limp as a rag that’s been wrung out too hard, I collapsed at the bottom of that shame spiral and saw the dark corner where I usually hunkered down, where it was safe and I could be alone. For a moment I just laid there, staring at the imprint on the ground left behind by the little girl inside me that is always so desperate to hide. I could indulge her again. I wanted to. Because turning the other way, expressing my needs—as if they mattered as much as everyone else’s—and taking ownership of my experiences in this life, was the hard thing. It’s what I always say I want, but it’s not the thing I do. I hide.
If I hadn’t just reread Geneen Roth’s When Food Is Love with its emphasis on how we use food and excess weight to bury our pain, if I hadn’t just turned forty and vowed it was time to grow up, or if living life on repeat was still enough to sustain me, I would’ve quietly slithered into the depths of my internal safe space where I could hate everyone and myself until all those hateful, spiteful, fearful thoughts passed, but this time…
This time I opened my mouth and spoke.