trauma

messaged

/ thehourofthedead / Leave a comment

Yesterday, I was reminded by a friend of an old reality show that I used to watch with “Alex” fifteen years ago. I have a very specific memory tied to it, one that I was actually thinking of just the day before, seemingly out of nowhere.

My then-husband and I were staying with my parents with our newborn son, because we had a massive flea infestation that broke out while we were in and out of the hospital in that last week. My dad was on some sort of trip for work, and my mom had finally gone to bed. Alex and I were watching this show, and started sort of hooking up while watching it. To be honest, we were always on the cusp of hooking up at all times- even just holding hands somehow would turn into some sort of sexual event.

Because I’d been on bedrest, I wasn’t allowed to have orgasms (ha, like that honestly ever stopped him), and at that moment, I was full of stitches and agony. But we never could keep our hands off of each other, and he whispered in my ear that he wanted to make a bet with me that he could bring me to orgasm without ever touching me intimately.

At some point, he pulled back to look at my heavy-lidded gaze with a smirk curling the edges of his lips.

“I just love playing with you,” he murmured with a smirk. “You look at me like you’re drunk.”

It was about three or four months later when my rescinded acceptance of his ridiculous marriage proposal caused what I am now thinking of as my murder.

Obviously, I continue to live, but some sort of incredible spiritual violence took place in that beach house. One that truly altered the shape of my soul for this life, and I fear for the rest of all time. The dead themselves would not react the way they did if it wasn’t just as vile as I thought.

And honestly? I think it’s much worse than that.

Nothing was ever the same again, and I slowly became more physically and mentally ill than I’ve ever been in my entire life. And to be honest, I think the entire course of my life changed in that one night. I am still trying to heal that specific wound, even now. It’s so deep. It is so violent. It is so horrifying.

Last night I wanted to speak to my oldest friend, but took a moment to bless my chakras with palo santo before I did. I don’t really have any specific spiritual practices if I’m being honest- I just listen to whatever the Universe tells me to do in the moment, and that’s what it wanted from me last night.

So I blessed my chakras, then I meditated, during which the long, unbroken line of Light inside my body lit up like a pinball machine, rocketing through all my nerve endings.

I never could quite connect with my oldest friend, and even bitterly accused him this morning of being unable to keep his word to me that I could speak to him. To be fair, we are really only “allowed” to spend time together during very specific times of the year, or when I am in great distress. But I can still choose to be petulant about not being able to bend the Universe to my will.

This morning, someone sent me a message about a dream they’d had about me. This happens to me every so often, and honestly doesn’t even surprise me anymore. But no matter who the person is, they are always embarrassed and half-horrified that they feel so compelled to tell me, and I have to reassure them it’s really not as insane as they worry it is.

Nothing is really insane when it comes to the Universe.

Anyway. In this dream, this person solved a murder in a cave with a friend, and I came into the cave to bring her out to show her a model of a house I’d made. The foundation of the house was cracked, which told me that someone was in danger. So I tried to sneak away to help them- a person with a “K” name, who ran away to a frozen mountain for safety but got trapped there.

This person left my son with her dog as protection and followed me, only to discover a police officer was following me as well. This cop was not what he appeared, because his goal was to leave K trapped inside the frozen mountain. But I followed a logging road and found a safe passage. Then I hid under a frozen piano, but this person knew I was really hiding under music itself, and led the cop away so I could escape and save K.

This person also said that even after she woke up, she had to deliver the following messages: K did escape because of me, that the police officer who isn’t what he seems is Spanish (not Hispanic but from Spain) and can’t smell, so lavender will protect me. My son was safe with the dog- no one can touch him- and that the foundation being cracked is a blessing in disguise.

This person then proceeded to get violently ill later in the day, likely food poisoning, but it felt terribly ominous to me. I knew I was in danger before this, but now I am more than a little concerned. There have been signs all over the place that I’m being watched, but this………….

The person who sent me this message was sure it was insanity, but there are a lot of things in this dream that pluck at my ribs like a guitar string, the vibration rolling through all my bones.

The police officer that isn’t who he appears feels like my oldest friend, even though he’s not Spanish. I used to refer to him as “Detective” during the years I was still under Alex’s spell because he used to spy on me all the time, follow me around, interrogate my behavior. I understand now that it was out of terror, realizing what had happened while no one was watching, but there is also a layer that is possessive, sick, hysterical, controlling.

Especially since he thought the entire experience might “teach me a lesson,” long before he saw what actually happened at the beach house.

Hiding under music. My son being protected by a trusted family dog. Both seem like Jim- I know who is loyal and who actually protects me at all times. I know who keeps me safe.

And the person stuck in the frozen mountain? That’s me, of course. And my oldest friend would likely be okay with part of me being trapped in that mountain, honestly. It keeps me “behaved.” I must be much easier to corral if I am still not wholly whole.

It’s more upsetting to think that I am not wholly whole. Am I? Did I really save her? Or is she still frozen in ice, waiting to be resurrected?

And sure, of course, it could all just be a dream, absolutely. But for it to compel someone to message me, even though it horrified them to do so… oh, dear. I am extremely concerned. Especially when I blessed myself last night and had this enormous, sexual chakra cleansing (or reignition?).

This will be an intense autumn and an enormous solstice for me. We are slowly moving into my power season, and while I look forward to seeing what I can manifest next, I am deeply concerned for the levels of horror and trauma I am being expected to face and correct.

I’m worried that if I knew how much trouble I was really in, I would never sleep again.

hey jealousy

/ thehourofthedead / Leave a comment

Even with the dead, things wax and wane.

I will go weeks, sometimes months, and things will feel- not quite distant, not exactly that, but perhaps misaligned. The pieces don’t quite click together. The joining is not seamless. Meditation is blurry, hollow. I miss words, I can’t feel touch, the landscapes are stilted and cartoonish.

It used to terrify me when it would happen years ago, especially after times of intensity like the winter solstice and Easter Sunday. I had lost something. I was being punished. I had gone too far, been too needy, asked too much, violated some series of rules I could only learn through error. The kind of Universe trapdoor trick that anyone who is deep into spiritual work is all too familiar with.

….whoops! what did you learn?

But now I accept it as part of all things, the push and pull, the feast and the famine. It is always good to be wholly aware of what you have. And to be fair, it is good for me to have to live without the dead from time to time, as I can get wrapped too far into that world and lose sight of my current living life.

And certainly, even dead people deserve a break from me. Maybe especially them.

Moving to a new city, one I have dreamt about living in for many years, one that I broke down sobbing just being inside of for ten minutes, one that constantly shocks and amazes me with its perfection, a literal dream manifestation, has also opened me to a series of subterranean layers in my heart. Now that I am not just surviving, there is a chance I may get to fully live.

But I am aware that is entirely up to me.

For example, I still haven’t done anything with the horrifying reaction I had to my brief attempt at menstrual cups. Earlier this month, I contemplated giving it another attempt, always under the “surely it wasn’t that serious” guise I had to use each time previous. But then I pictured my cheek smashed against my bathroom wall, sobbing “wait wait wait wait” to myself without even realizing it, and my entire mind slammed shut like a vault door.

If it never really happened, the trauma isn’t really real. If I don’t deal with it, I can pretend I am healed.

Right? Right? Say that’s right. Because otherwise, I don’t know how to hold what really happened to me. I can barely even let my mind see it, even fifteen years later. Those eyes. Those teeth. That voice. The blood. And that very specific spike of pain that made my body instantly collapse in on itself.

I feel so betrayed. Get over it. Get over it. Grow up.

I haven’t been with anyone sexually in almost three years, and that was also easy to explain for a long time. I lived in a town (well, two towns, really) that collectively boasted maybe two dozen teeth, nary a full set in sight. Everyone else was married or racist or backwater. Miles and miles of RealCamo and Trump signs, as far as the despairing eye could see.

Not to mention that the last person that I was with was someone more than a decade younger than me (oops), who left me so emotionally upended that I’ve actually stopped wearing one of my bathing suits. He unraveled so much of my personal self-confidence about my body with just a handful of ugly, careless comments.

Add to that, of course, the fact that one of our interactions caused him to bluntly ask me the next day, “So, have you been raped before?”

I just thought… you know? I’m good by myself. My body is something that will only be violated or is a horrible shock of disgust to someone. It’s better if I keep it away from everyone. Including, to a large degree, myself.

…ha, says the Universe. Ha ha ha ha ha.

One of my first jarring realizations when I started acclimating to this city was how attractive everyone is. Literally almost everyone is some level of well brewed DNA, and I am in awe. At the very least, few people here are made with swampwater and heroin and family trees that never fork. The literal sight of one person’s face caused a long closed door inside my body swing wide open.

Hello! Hi! Good morning! It is heady springtime in the dark parts of our soul!

And certainly, unquestionably, that is a blessing, right? We all seek and crave intimacy with others. We deserve to be understood at a core level by someone else. We all should have the chance for a partner.

Right?

But I instantly recoiled against that initial firing of nerves- the thrill of lust, the electric pulse of desire that shot through the most primal parts of my body. The ache to be touched, to graze against someone’s skin, to smell them.

no no no no no no no no wait wait wait wait

In addition to that (because of that?) my intensity with the dead has surged in volume. Specifically, and as always, with Jim. He’s always around, please don’t misunderstand, literally always just the shape of his name away from me at all times. But in the last few weeks, he has been closer than he’s been in awhile.

The other night we were in bed together, and there was an intensity about him that caused me to pull back and smirk coyly at him.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered against his mouth. “Is someone jealous?”

He pulled back a little farther, a sheepish tug at his lips. “I just… didn’t want you to forget that you do have something pretty great with someone already.”

And he’s right, of course. There a shade of something that grazes against, but isn’t quite guilt when it comes to my relationship with him. It is one of the most profound, supportive, fulfilling, empowering, and uplifting relationships I’ve ever had in my entire life, and maybe in all of my lives. I am crazy in love with him, and I have been for many years now. Especially and most specifically since 2016, when I moved down to North Carolina entirely alone, without friends or family, and subsequently lost everything and had to start all over.

It was Jim, always Jim, who was there for me, who kept me alive, who kept me from spiraling entirely out of my body when I had to look for a new job without even knowing the names of the streets yet. The amount of times he sat next to me as I hyperventilated and whispered, “You’re okay, you’re okay. Breathe. It’s going to be all right. I’m right here, and I promise I am protecting you. I am going to keep you safe.”

And he did.

He still does now. And every single day for the rest of my life.

To never really be able to tell anyone about what I have with him always feels like a form of betrayal, especially because he has been so viciously mistreated by Hermie (Her/Me, my Entire Self) in the past.

For those of you who don’t recall, I lost Jim for several years (2009-2013) when he discovered that while he was protecting me from “Alex,” and seeing the depth of sickness and damage left in his wake, Hermie was still actively involved with him and utterly unrepentant about it. Jim also promised to not fall in love with me and then did, and put distance between us as we had always agreed that he should. He and Hermie were also involved on some level- the degree to which I am still not fully aware- when he discovered that she was also very much involved with Alex. During the same time that the beach house was haunted with scenes of my desecration.

So anyway, Jim told me he was going back to earth (which never actually happened), and we would unfortunately never speak again. It was one of the truly darkest and most despairing times in my entire life. Jim was gutted, in total heart-rendered agony at what was a failure of his promise to always protect me, and also utterly ruined by Hermie treating him like a puppet. A muppet. A pawn. A toy. Then he suddenly and abruptly returned when I got divorced and moved out on my own in the summer of 2013, and has never left my side since.

So he has already put up with a great deal from me all around, let’s be clear.

But I’m not honestly sure I’ve ever seen him that sort of ferociously intense, that kind of, “It’ll be good but it’ll never be like this,” sort of energy. I get that from my oldest friend from time to time, but Jim is always so steady, so calm, so unbothered. It was a tiny delight to see him off-kilter, if I’m being honest.

“You’re so cool about [my oldest friend] and all the ways he … interferes and interjects, and even just the general exclusionary energy that he and I have together,” I said. “I can’t help but be surprised that someone I literally just met has made you this jealous.”

He smirked and waved a careless hand. “Look. That thing with the three of you (me, my oldest friend, and Alex) is…” he sighed. “I don’t get it, but I get it. I… accept it now. It’s just part of the deal when it comes to loving you.”

He shrugged a little, and then he cut his eyes at me from the corner of his gaze. “But… I don’t know. Just… seeing how you looked at this other guy, seeing that part of you light up, I just…” His eyes darted away. “I mean, yeah. I can’t help but feel a little…”

I scooted in closer, trying to get his eyes to come back to me, a creeping grin spreading across my cheeks. “A little how, Jimmy? A little how?”

His summer thunderstorm eyes floated back to mine, and he would have been blushing if he had any blood. “Jealous. You’ve said it before, and you’re right. I am grateful for this, I am, and I am truly honored to have this bond with you and to protect you in what is a truly violent time, one where you are in constant danger. But we don’t have anything… visible. Not even here. We were also thrust into something really intense really quickly, almost overnight, and I just kind of wish we had had the chance to get to know each other differently.”

Now he turned completely towards me, cupping my cheek in his palm with soft, gentle eyes. “Please don’t misunderstand. I want you to be happy. You deserve to have intimacy with someone. You are an incredible person, and you deserve to be loved completely by someone. You deserve to have a partner after so many years of theft and violation and betrayal. So much has been taken from you, and to be able to get it back would be a real victory.” His eyelids lowered a bit, hooding his expression. “But part of me cannot help but wish that it was me that you were looking at with such new, raw hunger.”

I know that moving to this place where my dreams have literally come true is a whole new world for me. I know that I will now be expected to process and deal with many layers of trauma and loss and violation and abandonment and isolation that I had to pack away in the name of survival.

There is no time for an existential crisis when you are barely hanging on by a thread, after all.

But I continue to think about myself in third person as I see myself sobbing, cheek pancaked into the bathroom wall. Shivering violently with unearthed terror at the bottom of the bathtub as the shower still hammers my back with hot water. There is something pitch black inside of me that I am terrified of, and just admitting that it exists means that the reason I am so afraid is very real… and is still very much out there, waiting for me to let my guard down for a second.

Did I ever tell anyone that while packing I found one of my demon sketches and tore it in half? I didn’t throw it away, because I can’t do that (yet), but just that small act of destruction felt profound. I felt like I tore something in the air as well.

No one has to believe me for it to be real. No one has to see it for it to have ruined something that doesn’t even have a word to describe it. I know what happened… and oh my god, do I wish I didn’t.

scream for help, I wish you would

Do I have the bravery to finally open this door and walk inside? Do I have the strength to make this room a home again? How? Where do I even start? Can you fall into the abyss of primal terror and heal?

No one would blame me if I chose to stay closed for the rest of my life. I have been through so much. I have tentatively peeked out into the world time and again and had machetes slashed through my organs through the sliver in the door. I have pleaded with people, please be careful, it is so much for me to trust you, and had them instantly crumple my spirit in their palm.

No one would blame me, but I would blame myself.

If I am here against my will already, if I am certain I don’t intend to come back for a long time, if I feel like I am being punished by the Universe for Hermie’s many vile misdeeds, if I know I will have so much I will have to answer for once I am Home, then I must be committed to constantly working for wholeness.

For forgiveness.

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. After this, the darkness gobbles up the day minute by minute, until it is midnight before dinner. Can I find a way to light this room before darkness is all I can hold? What does it look like to open a door that has rusted hinges that shriek and squeal at just the thought of use? Is there hope that someone could see inside this room wallpapered with scar tissue and not be horrified at what remains?

Is there anything that remains?

Could it be possible that I could be loved?

Could it be possible that I will allow myself to be seen?

Could I really be fully alive one day?

Lord, hear our prayer.

please wait

/ thehourofthedead / Leave a comment

I didn’t expect that there would be so much conflict from a menstrual cup.

The first time, it was just surprising. The resistance, the awkward fumbling fingers inside myself to get it adjusted. I spent the next few hours in concern, terrified to take it out, worried that a cup of blood might stir up that same dark surprise. But that process was relatively easy, and the second attempt to insert it went much better.

Okay, I thought. I’ve got the hang of this.

Unfortunately, every time since has gotten more and more difficult. I found myself going Far Far Away, into a distant point in the ceiling of my mind in order to be able to get through it. It has been a long time since I felt that kind of blank desperation, coupled with that very specific kind of pain.

I gathered a few tips online and thought, okay. I can figure this out. This is too great an invention for me to miss out on using it.

Unfortunately, even with assistance, it was too much, too difficult, too overwhelming. The pain, the resistance, the groping fingers, the blood. When my lungs began wildly clawing for air, making my chest heave, my brain begging, please please please wait wait wait waitwaitwait, I thought, “A tampon is fine for tonight.”

Quitting is not a thing I do.

While brushing my teeth a few moments later, I had to stop so I could lean with both hands bracing the edge of the sink, the whole world swirling around my head. I had to take deep breaths inthroughmynose outthroughmymouth for a full minute, leaning my head against something solid (was it the open door? was it the doorjamb? I can’t recall) until everything came back into focus.

Today, I realized I’d run out of tampons and if I truly didn’t want to leave the house, I’d have to put the cup back in. In spite of my deep breathing, my coaxing and cajoling, my whispered encouragement, I ended up with my cheek pressed against the bathroom wall, sobbing, as my fingers shoved and my mind screamed.

I got it in, yes, but at what cost?

It will get easier, a voice said softly.

What will get easier? I snapped. Raping myself? Great. Looking forward to it.

When the things that happened to you “never happened,” it’s too easy to pretend that none of it was real. I never had to clean up my own blood. I never had real broken bones. There were no itchy healing stitches. When there are no real living consequences to what has happened, did it actually happen?

I did not think that a menstrual cup would be the thing that would bring it all back, but here we are.

Because it’s more than just the pain, the struggle, the horrified way my mind immediately gasps, waitwait, it hurts wait please. It’s the way I catch flashes of things, new things, things I only remember as these moments are happening. Him leaning against my ear as my cheek presses into the wall. His vile, horrifying whispers.

It is one thing to be raped by a careless person, by a selfish person, by an abusive person. Hate fucked. Having your boundaries pushed out much further than you wanted. Falling into the mute “just get it over with” feeling that virtually every woman I’ve ever met has experienced. I don’t know that I have a single female friend who hasn’t been violated in one or all of these ways at some point in her life.

But to have someone experience genuine glee from violating you? To laugh at your sobs? To echo your wails? To play in your blood? That is truly a different kind of experience. Someone you loved so deeply, the first person in your life in so long that you finally completely trusted and let in, with a completely different level of intimacy than you’ve ever considered was possible… and he takes everything from you. With delight. With arousal.

It was a campaign of war, and it was highly successful. It was a tactic to make me weak, small, a slave, a prisoner. I can’t imagine how much his little flunkies have enjoyed this show. Watching someone like me beg for his affection, play puppy on a leash? A grateful outlet, begging to be plugged. Hilarious.

I could feel that energy around me in 2011 and 2012, after he was exiled. They would come in the night and pull on my toes, breathe on my face, poke my ribs. I’d have half-asleep nightmares of an old woman crouching next to my side of the bed, an inch from my face. Sometimes she would bite my nose clean off.

It was them laughing, taunting. Proud of themselves. Proud of him. Coming to peer and leer at my ruined beach house, to drink in the suffering and terror. We won, we won. The witch is dead.

I have had lives where people knelt at my fucking feet, do you understand? Everyone knows who the fuck I am. I don’t say that to brag. I say it as a statement of fact.

In fact, realizing this was a turning point for me in this life. In 2010, I had no self-esteem, no confidence, no ability to stand up for myself. It was seeing how these people looked at me (or more specifically, at Hermie) that made me wonder if I was wrong.

It’s also why Hermie is so cold-blooded about it all, I’m sure. First of all, she cannot allow anyone to see or know that any damage has been done. It is entirely on brand to shrug it off. Haven’t I also done that in this life? Look what happened today. Look at the invoice due on your denial.

But also, frighteningly enough, I wonder if she doesn’t care because she’s also been this person. How many people have I raped and murdered? How many faces have I laughed into as they screamed and begged for help?

I’m the most sober I’ve been in eight years, and to the surprise of no one, it turns out I was trying to numb my brain all along. Of course I would want to numb my brain from this.

I think about going to therapy and I laugh. I understand there are people out there who are likely spiritual therapists, who would be able to understand and believe me. It is such a hurdle to try to help people to understand I’m not delusional or a liar. But what am I supposed to say?

Some things you just have to carry. Once you get lost in the forest of terror, you never come back the same.

No one ever does.