The Belly Project .com

I took pictures and sent them in earlier this summer.  I was always very conscious of my figure.  As an early teen I really developed: within months I was very buxom and hourglassy.  It was accented by my posture: I took years of ballet, and carried myself straight (which causes a lot of teasing about my chest).  In high school I weighed 135.  When I moved to where there was food, I weighed 145.  In college I moved to the top floor of the dorms and took volleyball and crosstraining.  I reached 165.  36/26/38 and around 5′8″.  I kept pretty much these same measurements and just filled in.  When I took a job in a school I grew to 185.  I was panicky, though to people around me (because of my proportions) I look skinny.  I hate that.  I can be obese, and my family just chalks it up to vanity because I always was so skinny. ( I am obese right now, over 35% of my weight is fat, but I get no encouragement from anyone who “looks” larger than me.  They think I’m being picky though it truly is a health issue.)  I went into the hospital and when I came out a month later I was back down to 135, with a burned out brain (104 fever for weeks), general weakness, and issues.  No matter how I tried to get my strength back, it wiped me out.  I couldn’t even make it through the grocery store.  A decade or so later after a series of disasters, including a sexual assault (my neighbor decided that going to a movie with him meant I was interested enough he could force sex – I was a virgin and went into shock and PTSD, and he kept at me)…I started fighting the pain, pushing the muscles out, wishing I had something to hold my belly together.  I felt like my whole body was pouring through itself and out my midline.  Holding the muscles tight (like in standing) triggered the swelling, sensitive nerves, and scar tissue.  I started pushing my belly out.  I gained weight.  I got back up to 185.  *I* know I’m much, much bigger than healthy, but somehow my extra heft grounds me and makes me feel secure.  I love your project.  All those sensitive, brave bellies.  Part of me wants to lose weight to feel more in charge, and some of me is terrified of that.  Please wish me luck and peace, to feel safe and strong and in comfort no matter what.  I took pictures and sent them in.  I have a nice-looking belly.  I do!  Thank you.  I will try (with PTSD, memory is never a given) to send in my new pics next July 24, on the one year anniversary.  No matter what I look like.  Thank you.  The belly, in chakras, represents the you/me balance, engagement with others, strength and push/pull with the outside world.  Thanks for letting me see other warrior bellies, and to know my belly is not alone in its fight. 

35 years

interlude

I am safe.

I am rooming with a friend from a while back.  I like my job (except for the little crappy bits) and don’t hate going to work.  In fact, I like it a little.  I have gotten 2 or 3 paychecks, which means I have 18 dollars, but I’m fed and safe.  But today I’m sick-ish, and I hate sick because it reminds me…

(All delicate ears stop reading now.  I’m not joking.)

I never planned to sleep with him.  One day he said he knew I didn’t want to, but thought that if he forced me, we’d be in a relationship. This is the story of one of those nights.

I was sick.  He lived nearby, and would stand outside the window, “Let me in, I know you’re there.”  I always fell for it.  I was so stupid.  Really.  He was a Christian and I was a Christian, and I would say “this isn’t right” and he would say “but you’re here”.

Really hard to type that without bringing it back.  I’m doing well!  Yay!

He called, and I told him I didn’t want him over (today’s excuse) because I was sick.  He called back later and said he had soup for me.  I crawled out of bed and opened the door for the soup.  He asked to stay and I thought nothing will happen, he knows I’m sick.  NOW it sounds stupid, it sounds like an excuse, but you have to realize none of this was planned, I hadn’t slept in ages, I kept bleeding, and no one of my family and friends would even answer the phone – I was too “negative”, you see.

So I let him stay.  I had slept in the same bed with men before with no sex.  I was exhausted.  At least he wouldn’t be standing at my window, nagging, keeping me up.

After a bit, he rolled over on top of me.  I told him, no, I didn’t want to, I was sick.

It didn’t stop him.  See?  He said, your body’s reacting.  You want it.

No, I said.  I don’t have any control over THAT.

He didn’t stop.  I lay there, tears running down my face, not able to push him off, not able to control my own body.  Repeating over and over in my head, silently, until it got solid enough to speak.  “I don’t want to do this.”  Then I kept repeating it,crying,  over and over, while he kept moving over me.  He laughed at my body’s reaction.  Finished, rolled off.  He fell asleep, and I kept crying.

The memories are fuzzy.  I had to block them off to survive in the world that shines outside my window every day.  I can’t tell you what happened, other than the highlights that stand out in lucid detail.  I can’t tell you anything that happened after I said it out loud, and he said I was lying.

I am grateful for that.

Today I am sick, and that always brings up a rage, a desperation and helplessness, though I’ve forcefully integrated sexuality in to my life; hoping to adjust and move on.  Painfully.  Today I posted elsewhere that I was sick, and a friend far away said she would bring me chicken soup if she could.  The automatic reaction to throw up.  Then a light at the end of the tunnel.  Replacing the old trigger with a friendly reach.

Amen

POSTSCRIPT:

I remembered…

He fell asleep, and I kept crying.  He rolled away from me, and I felt so empty. His shoulder was there, and I reached to touch it.  I don’t know what I was thinking, except the feeling of air blowing through me and a need to not be alone.  He laughed again, I thought you said you didn’t want it. It’s better than you being over there, I replied.  Still crying.  I lay there, thankful at least to have something other than the air blowing through my spirit, but still crying, still dazed that I had to be doing this. Hurting, not wanting to, but not able to see any other solutions.

sigh

spring

Yes, I know it’s September.  I have a lot to catch you up on: I lost my job, broke my nose, got a concussion for 3 weeks, made some choices (not the best, blame it on the concussion, but educational), found a roommate w a house to move into, moved, got offered a different job, ….. all within a month.

Where I’m living now is a housing association.  I walk each morning.  This morning I saw other walkers, which I hadn’t before.  I saw a hummingbird, some larger birds, and picked some basil from the yard I passed last time.  Last night was hard.  This morning I just want to get through it, but I’m not too heavy, my bears know what I mean.  It’s a good day.  Even though I have $4 to my name.   I’ll catch you up later, I have to shower and work.

keeping the faith……

rememberance

http://www.candleandribbon.org/images/9-11-01candlesimplelarge1.gif

I am not writing much, my brain is soup.  Things externally are going pretty well, and I am healing a little too.  Hope to be back soon.

Because the good old days weren’t always good…

… and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.

Yo.  Keepin’ the faith.

Sunday Morning

Good morning.

Yesterday I was in a very b*&%^y mood yesterday morning….ruminations, all my BPB’s understand…I’ll tell you about it much later.  You’ll probably roll your eyes, snort, and go OMG.  SO.  So I was very, very grateful for an invitation to get out and remind myself of the present.

A friend invited me to fly remote control airplanes.  I crashed his plane.  Oops.  Hard.  It may not survive.  But there was no yelling, so YAY!  I was almost fired once from a job because I accidentally broke something and I wasn’t showing the appropriate level of disturbance.  I was actually completely distraught, but the manager had told me it wouldn’t be that expensive to fix and not to worry about it.  So when I started thinking about it, I reminded myself it was under control. Note to bosses: if you tell someone to move on from an issue, please don’t punish them for trying to do so.

Anyway, the plane hit hard, it was my second time flying.  No yelling.  No yelling.  THEN we went to get something cold to drink, and THEN! we went to see Transformers (Awesome!), and THEN!! I went to Astronomy Night at the Nature Museum (not the real name) with my cousin and her daughter.  I have been taking my vitamins, taking vitamin E, drinking enough, keeping my minerals up, getting out of the house when the clouds start….  I’ve been doing good.

But I still haven’t gotten my unemployment together, and I should have had it done at the beginning of the month.  I’ve missed a whole 3 weeks’ reimbursement.  But I’ve kept myself together.  Mostly.    And that’s really a big deal.  I wish, I wish.  I wish I was a fish.  I wish they’ll backdate my unemployment to when I applied, and give me the difference.  I am sorry for letting it go.  I just can’t afford to lose that mental grip.  I am planning on going to the job office on Monday and asking for help getting my file together.

and now …..

this is what JOY sounds like.

Come to think of it, if I ever get married or have any ceremony like that, I want to do it to this song:

http://www.televisiontunes.com/CBS_Sunday_Morning_-_Trumpet_Voluntray.html

On a theme….

Bring Kleenex….

Crayola

This is lovely!

WARNING:  STOP READING NOW!

Seriously.  Unless you’re a psychologist, or god….I will probably erase it later.  The darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable…..

Just listen to this and let that be the end of it:

I used to live in Minnesota and Nebraska, and North Dakota, and all over the midwest.  I loved listening to A Prairie Home Companion. Now anything that reminds me of home, those deep chords that are buried deep, deep deep, …. like Garrison Keillor’s voice at the end of the video… wrenches my breath right out of there.

My best friend, the first one I turned to, the one I hoped on caring enough to do something the most, lives in Minnesota.  I still can’t talk or write to her, though I send her gifts now and again.  I have no calendar of birthdays, so I have no idea if I miss it.  I loved her.  There’s a deep, deep, cruel, angry, overall encompassing dark feeling when I think of her; sitting right beside the love I felt.  “You’re just being too negative.”  “I can’t talk right now, I’m with A–.”  “I’ll call you back.” (never did) “I can’t talk, I’m going fishing with my new lov-ah.” “I don’t see what I can do.”  She sent me a valentine email – of an exploding bunny head that dripped blood across the screen.  I had to go home for hours before the panic attack was manageable.  She sent me a movie ticket – to a theatre that doesn’t exist in my town.  Sex jokes.  And as much as I loved her for 15 years, I hate her.  I hate her for walking around with her life and her friends and her family and her lover, when all I asked was to call me at the time of night I knew he would show up outside my window.

I wasn’t worth the phone call, to mar her pretty, happy life.

And that’s not fair for me to say.

I try to adjust to the fact that her life had a different track than mine.

But where else could I turn?

It was literally years before I could feel any anger.  Before that was a pain that I took out on my body, myself.

The therapist I was seeing says I kinda split.  My mind, my whole self flips from one side to another like a switch.  I don’t trust myself.  So I don’t write.  I send her care packages off and on because I love her and miss her.  She has sent me notes, some very sweet ones.  But I can’t think of her without this rage, this pain, this fury, this despair.  So I don’t write her back.

Do you hate me? I hope not.  Someday, they tell me, these ocean tides in my head will solidify into solid ground.  Then maybe I can stand up straight and say hello without why did you leave me why didn’t you love me why did you leave me to fight alone why taking over my head, and the uglier things that follow.

She doesn’t deserve it.  NO-body deserves these words.

Any ideas for getting them out of my head?  No?  *sigh*  Back to counterbalancing day by day….

whywhydidntyoucallmewhydidyouleavemewhydidntyouhearmecryand

whycouldntyouhelpandwhyisyourboymoreimportantand

yournewfriendi’veknownyoufordecadeswhydidntyouhelp

as if *I*

were

guiltles

It’s baaaaaack…

http://www.breedemandweep.com/madness

I can feel it.

A week or two ago I smashed my face into a wall running away from a bug bomb.  I was bleeding so badly my neighbor went and got the landlord.

She said my dog has to go.

I did not spend the next few nights at home.

I’m better.  I can see the shakes (for lack of a better word) coming, and fortunately my (at least physical) health is not endangered.  But.

I can feel it.  The panic.  The inability to think of anything negative without great, overshadowing, deep, sinking sense of despair that blocks out the sun.  Thank goodness for the physical sun.  I do my grounding exercises, mind racing between all the different selves in here.  I want it to go away.  I try to keep my eating patterns set.  I can fake it enough I haven’t really screwed up any social outlets.  But I’m faking it, here.  I spent some time with a teenager this week, and you know how intensely themselves teenagers are?

I couldn’t

really

keep

up.

I’ve been staying at a friend’s house lately.  My heart is a wreck.  Another friend wants to come and visit me, but I’m afraid of change and I can hear the future like a high-pitched iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiii that I have to remember to breathe through.  YOU are NOW.  Breathe.

I hesitate even to address it through this venue.  Deny, deny.  It makes functioning easier.

Do you know how many people have turned away?

Breathe

Just fake it one more day and the wind will carry you

Then: word of a friend’s marriage ending, being dumped because I’m broken by a guy who’s known me for years, another friend getting married, my sister (the “normal” one) replaced me in her life and I hear about her fun (only secondhand).  I’m not stable enough to sustain interactions with her.

Or anyone, really.

Who am I?  Days like this the buzzing in my head.  Who am I?  Who what when where why……  birds, singing, news, get dog food…  step.

I know it’s part of the integration.  But I fight that, too.  I don’t want to be *this* me, I want to be the *other* me.

Asking for help is pretty much getting the rope to hang yourself with, at least in my position.  No one will stand by me if I go on meds.  My family hates the broken me, but say I’m just like my mother so what to expect?  No job, no insurance, no reason to BE better.  Love to anyone who makes it through.

I’m ok,

but …..   needed the company so I’m talking to myself.  Trying not to go over to *ahem* house…. the silence.  The memories (I will do anything, just don’t leave me alone here alone in my head alone with the pain and the bleeding this is normal breathe get through it its just another day)

It will be ok.

It will.

One day at a time.

Let it go.

I just don’t want to be alone.