Happy and Dying Inside

My daughter reached a milestone in her life.  She has worked so hard to get her Masters degree.  She has gone through the 3000 hours of internship and worked two jobs all the while.  She has worked with troubled girls, some who have issues similar to mine.  She is finally about to get her license in three weeks.

I have never been so proud and happy.  Yet out of the blue, an unexpected pain hit me like an 18 wheeler.  I wish my dad, her PaPa, had been alive to see it.  He died on December 3, 2015. Three months and six days ago.  It was in a horrible truck accident.

Anyway, she had left to go to the gym Monday.  Out of nowhere I broke down sobbing. Last night I could not sleep. I grabbed my trusty knife and began cutting in between my fingers and the palm of my left hand. 

I have been trying to recall a time when I felt such joy and such pain simultaneously. Perhaps during her childbirth?  I don’t know. I do find it interesting and have noted before, that the children she counsels  have a lot of issues similar to mine.

I am 54 years old, but when it comes to coping with emotions I am still 14.  The age I was when my mother died.  The age I was when I started self harming. I have been stuck for four decades.

On a positive note, I had reached a point where I wasn’t doing it daily.  I still drink everyday to lessen the noise in my head. In my mind, drinking is the lesser of the two evils.  I don’t get drunk, just buzzed.  Buzzed enough to help me stay numb. Buzzed enough to help me, “go away,” so to speak.  I don’t go out as I am a little old for that. I drink at home….okay that was a rationalization. “I don’t go out as I am a little old for that.”

I go out as little as possible.  I prefer my bat cave to being around people.  Being around people means pretending there is nothing wrong with me.  Pretending is fucking exhausting.

The MOST Trying Week

i am exhausted just thinking about this week.  I took two live calls in training today.  Tomorrow and going forward I will be taking calls all day.  My new job is at a credit union.  I swore when I left my job if 11 years I would never go back to a call center.  The pay was too good to turn down. Every indication thus far, is that a credit union is vastly different than a bank.  Thursday after work, I must drive across town during traffic hour to a dinner for my niece.  She is getting her B.A. Degree.  I will be walking in alone.  At a place I have never been.  At a dinner/dance which will be full of people I don’t know.  I want to cry just thinking about it.  Maybe I can just walk in, find her and her mom, give them a kiss and leave.  They know I don’t do people.  So if I can’t stay, they will understand.

God blessed me today because the two calls I took were easy.  I was so nervous during my last break (prior to taking my turn), that I almost slid into a panic attack. My mask remained intact.  I also had to participate in an icebreaker, standing in a group of four in front of a room of about 20 people. 

I survived because I wasn’t me.  I did the task. I looked out (or appeared to look out) and did what I had to do.  My group of four won  the competition.  I spoke, I made a joke, I smiled……but I don’t remember seeing any faces….because I WAS NOT THERE.  

I am now waiting to fall asleep.  I just reopened the wound on my stomach.  One might think today was a triumph, but it does not feel like it.  It was not me who triumphed. It was the mask.

Help!