Melodramatic Me

Today I'm doing something completely different. Today I'm sharing something I wrote for my previous therapist a few years ago. It is not out of date — it is the most articulate statement of something I have felt off and on for my entire life. I'm sure there are many simple and complicated reasons I am sharing this with you right now, but I don't have any interest in exploring them.

Warning: This post contains raw pain and a point of view that most people that most people would rather not see. It is a bit melodramatic, which I am somewhat ashamed to admit is part of my make up — I would much rather be practical and down to earth. It is honest, sad, and dreary. It's also very long. So read at your own risk. It's okay to skip this one.

The Other Girl

Some girls are “the pretty girls.”  And some girls aren't. 

Because she was ugly, she could never be loved.  Because she could never be loved, she was ugly.  She wanted to hide, to be invisible, where she would be safe.  You'd think that she could, that not being one of the pretty ones would make that occur naturally.

You'd be wrong.

***

The world has never been a safe place for me.  While others seemed to walk in a world well-lit and stable, squinting in the sunlight, I huddled behind my knees and watched them through what was in reality a deep twilight, watched as they miraculously stepped upon perfectly placed flagstones of dry cleanliness, missing completely the endlessly grasping arms and greedy hands that reached out from the black and greasy pools around them.  I watched as dark strangers who moved within the deep shadow pause before these blithely safe ones, turning away or seeming to not even see them.  But the dark ones always saw me, always found me no matter what airless hole I hid in, no matter what blithe one I stood behind.  I could feel the hungry eyes staring at me even under the brightest noon sun.

In the world where I lived, pain found me to its liking.  It whispered its pleasures into my ears, telling how knives waited to cut me if I were unwary and how tools dreamed of mangling my hands, putting out my eyes.  Amorphous beasts lurked behind corners of rooms and at the edges of my vision, coming to devour me if I moved too slowly.  I walked my own paths along the edges of twilight, paths that shifted from one day to the next, from one step to another. My body grew accustomed to the bruises it gained from  missteps, where I came up against corners and edges that hadn't been there previously.  I tripped over bumps in the floor that rose to catch  me; I provided eternal entertainment for those whose eyes saw only the well-lit world.

Watching those who blithely and safely live in the light is something akin to how I imagine it must be to see angels: so bright and sharp-edged it makes me cry.  Those angel-like beings appear to float above fear and dread.  I feel leaden in contrast.  I used to dream of flying.

Even my dreams betrayed me, if only because they were no bulwark against the dark invaders.  I found myself stepping into sticky morasses, compelled to repeat disturbing actions or events until I could fight my way from sleep.  And dark ones chased me inside my dreams, causing me to awaken with no breath in my body, tingling with sweat, and painfully alert, waiting for the sound that would tell me my pursuers had followed me out of my mind.  I felt that if I breathed shallowly and quietly, I'd not be caught.

I began to wonder if the dark ones — the invaders and the hunters, the beasts and the bodiless limbs — were another side of the bright, safe ones.  What if those who floated in daylight were my tormentors, smiling a different smile on the side of their faces that were turned away from the sun?  Was that how they could step on only the dry, clean places?  If so, why was my face only in twilight?  Could I learn to become one of them?

I didn't learn to become, but I was born knowing how to create. S o I created: bulwarks, barriers, walls, and turrets.  The darkness scaled my walls and leered over my battlements, so I pushed these walls out further, away from my true self.  I made the walls thicker, made them greater in both number and size.  The darkness multiplied and surrounded me like a moat.  I filled the moat with stones and thorns and my own sharp-toothed creatures.  I pushed further, protecting more land; I disguised my walls with sweet-smelling flowers and ornamental iron fences and, where possible, the trappings of the bright ones.  The darkness spread itself out like an ocean of oil; it rose up around my fences like dense smoke until the frail sun was hidden from my eyes.  When the sun had previously shown upon my walls, those walls shone like silver.  But now they had the look of iron.

The only light I could see was the tiny light inside the small room at the top of my highest tower, a tower accessible only by way of a narrow, unprotected stairway that coiled its way upward — a stairway upon which I often fought my enemy.

I wish I could say that that light grew stronger, strong enough to burn through the deep twilight, bright enough to outshine all the safe ones. I wish I could say my light gave me great wings that let me fly out of that benighted land, toward my true home and away from my lifelong darkness, to the place of safety and trust.  I wish I could offer that comfort.

Instead, I remain in my room, where I often huddle behind my knees and gaze into that light. Sometimes a furious pounding comes upon the door.  Sometimes shadows glide in through the arrow slits and slide around the edges of my vision. But I hug my knees and keep my eyes turned toward this tiny light in the smallest room at the top of my highest tower.  It belongs only to me and neither the dark ones nor the bright ones shall ever have it.

***

So she built walls and landscapes and castles with high inaccessible towers, and she populated her lands with magical creatures and loving people, but she still yearned and the pain stayed inside her walls, keeping her company.  And even when the walls finally burst and broke and fell, she still had one wall remaining, one quiet hidden prison.  This prison hemmed in her unlovability, the thing you must never admit to, neither to the world nor even to yourself. To admit to it would only make the lovable ones feel uncomfortable, awkward.  As if their worlds were somehow missing something.  As if something important were hidden from them. As if they'd done something wrong.