Stitching Up The Seams

I realized yesterday something a little…disturbing. I guess that’s the word.

The first time I remember seeing a penis was on a picture of Michelangelo’s David. And I was confused, because I thought his penis looked wrong. And when I say confused, I mean that I freaking took my time and studied that picture, unable to figure out what was wrong.

What I realized yesterday is that the first time I saw an erect penis (porn) it looked perfectly natural to me.

I may be totally batshit crazy here. But I have the distinct impression that I knew what an erect penis looked like years before a flaccid one.

It feels stupid and attention-grabby and lying to say that, honestly.

But yesterday in the throws of panic, I knew it. I knew it was true.

I don’t know anymore. I think I’m crazy. I think I want to be crazy.

And I don’t even know why I’m writing this. Maybe to make it less painful the next time I remember, so I don’t erase it from my memory again.

whenincomments:

This is important. I’m speaking very much to myself.

In light of recent events, particularly yesterday’s unwelcome flood of memories and whatever the hell they are, I find myself in an odd predicament that I haven’t experienced in about four years.

Food is … hard.

I haven’t been able to finish a meal all week. I haven’t been able to eat at all today. I want to eat. But I’m in the office, and eating with my boss here makes me want to curl into a ball and cry. So I’m dreaming of going home and eating baked potatoes and chocolate ice cream at home, because I’ll be with my partner and Sherlock and it’ll be safe and maybe I’ll actually be able to eat and not feel sick or scared.

I will be okay. I know that. And part of me says, “There is no point whatsoever in you writing about this. You’re being overly dramatic, and honestly you can just stop and be okay.” But I don’t know how. But I know I’ll be okay, at least in the sense that life will go on and I will continue to live it and someday eating will be easier again, and someday I’ll either forget all the awful things I remember and half-remember and am not sure I remember, and it’ll be okay and maybe I won’t be sad anymore and it’ll be okay.

But if I can pretend to be okay, isn’t that what matters? I mean, if I can make people not uncomfortable by my freakishness and fear and whatever the hell I am, isn’t that what counts, somehow? I won’t make them uncomfortable, I won’t make them feel bad, and I’ll just smile and laugh and joke and go about life like I’m not fucked up, because I’m really NOT always fucked up, and it’ll be okay, right?

MASSIVE trigger warning for rape.

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I was in an odd mood last night.

Anyone who’s ever stayed the night at my house knows that at a certain time (one never knows when in the night this will be) I get my second wind and just start rambling.

It happened after going to bed last night, which thankfully my husband was okay with.

We were curled into each other, spooned, with his arm snaked around my waist and resting on the hollow of my hip — one of my favourite ways to be with him. And I was talking, just talking.

Just one finger of his caressed the top of my thigh ever so softly and lovingly, the way he does when he’s listening to me because he knows I need to jabber and he likes hearing my voice.

Just one stroke of his finger on the crest of my thigh.

And suddenly I was a little girl again, in a bright familiar room but I’m not sure where. And I’d just felt the same soft touch on my thigh, and I looked down at my thin little naked leg and was filled with questions and confusion.

And then it was over.

I was 25 again, laying in the dark with my lover and friend.

But the questions and confusion.

They remain.

Posted on a friend’s wall, under my real name, in response to something she wrote about how so much of fundamentalism is simply not Christ. Writing this under my real name was slightly scary, but not so much anymore. Weariness sometimes drowns out my fear. Who knows? This may even go in a more public sphere under my real name. It’s not fear that keeps me from doing so, so much as it is the realization of how much I will lose and how much more weary I would become. It’s funny how the love of others for me is entirely contingent on how well they think that I love God and “obey” Him.

Please know that I do not wish to be convinced. Rather, I do wish to be convinced…but most likely it will not come from a person. I don’t know. Everything is blurry.

I think you know I am wavering very much between atheism and deism. Actually, I am often both in the same day. Today it seems that I am a deist (though I was an atheist for most of last week). But this makes me want to believe. I want so much to believe that God is not a monster.

“Real love feels safe.” Part of me reaches out ever so tentatively to that statement, to wrap my trembling fingers around it and try to bury it deep within my heart, scratching it on the walls of my mind and soul. But “perfect love casts out fear” is already scratched there - in harsh angles dripping with a slow-killing poison. So much scripture is carved on the walls of my soul and heart and mind in those same cruel strokes with that same seeping poison. Things that may have once been meant to comfort that have only tormented.

I do not believe I can find “real love” in the church. Right now, I’m not even convinced I can find it outside of Michael. Many days I’m not convinced I can find it in him, though I realize those days are often marred by my own fear and self-hatred choking the life out of me, blurring my sight and senses.

I don’t know whether God is blurry because I hurt, or because I only hope to see Him when He is in fact not there.

Posting here because some of my…insecurities? imbalances? freak outs?…I still don’t feel safe sharing under my own name.

I’ve had 2 (arguably 3) panic attacks this week. One of them was accompanied by a thunderclap migraine (though thankfully not the kind that leaves me blind for a few hours). Migraines are emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting by themselves. And panic attacks are all of the above, as well. So combined…well.

Yesterday afternoon, before panic attack number 2 (number 1 happened on Monday) I was coming close to having one because of finances. My partner is out of work, though he has heard from a couple of people this week and will be pursuing both positions. But the financial strain is enormous, particularly since either my power steering or my rack and pinion are shot (anywhere from a $200-$1200 fix), and his car needs a new windshield, and both cars need inspected and licensed for our new state, particularly his since his plates expire this month. And we don’t have anywhere near enough to do that. So I was panicking. Then I got an email from an old coworker asking me if I was available to do some freelance work. I said yes, gave a quote. She told me that my quote was too conservative, and made me DOUBLE it. I felt hopeful.

Then, of course, my partner had the misfortune of touching my neck, which isn’t always a trigger point but it sure as hell was last night. So that sucked.

But then this morning I got a notice from Freshbooks, my estimate/invoicing program, that my estimate had been accepted! Yay! Money! I felt better. Hopeful again.

But the sadness was still there, and creeping, and getting bigger and heavier.

Then we were settling in to watch Buffy (new obsession, btw) and Sherlock was laying on the couch beside me. He stretched, and I thought he was awake, I thought he could see me. I reached out and patted his chest playfully/firmly - and he jumped like I’d electrocuted him. He’s a skittish dog normally, but this was different - his entire body shuddered for a few moments, and his face was TERRIFIED - his eyes were wide, then suddenly half-closed as if anticipating a blow. For a split second, before his terror reached me, I thought it was funny - I thought I’d just startled him, not actually terrified him. But his shuddering, his eyes, his little body quivering and tensing for pain…I just lost it. Completely and totally lost it.

I feel unstable. I feel selfish. I keep beating myself up for still hurting over my assault, because it wasn’t a big deal and why the fuck can I just stop hurting and stop having nightmares - my partner woke up the other night to me whimpering and beating the hell out of my pillow, and I don’t remember this and I don’t remember having a nightmare other than waking up feeling dirty and exhausted and wishing for death. I don’t want this, and I feel like it’s a ginormous overreaction and I just want it to stop and why the hell can’t I make it stop?!

For whatever reason, fixing all of the display issues on this site (which requires extensive back-end work) has fallen to me, and both the client and my boss are beyond anxious to have it finished. It’s a freaking eCommerce site, these things don’t get done in a day or two like these men suppose that they do. And why on earth this designer has to work on it instead of our developer…I don’t know. I’m just frustrated as hell, and my partner is upset because I have to work on a weekend and it’s a gorgeous day today but honestly it would be so, so nice to actually have his support, for him to hug me and kiss me and say, “I know it really sucks that you have to do this, but I’m proud of you for doing it” instead of grumbling that I’m working and saying things like, “It’s not your job anyway, and you’d better get time off for this” and other things that make me feel even more anxious than I already feel.

(sigh)

I started using my real-name Tumblr again, because reasons. So if you got a new follow from someone last night or this morning and you’re wondering who the hell they are (and if you visit their site and think, “hey! some of that looks familiar!”) well it’s me. Welcome to the secret club?

The way things work in our city is that water bills must be in the name of the owner of the property. Since we’re renting, that’s our landlord. The bills go to his house, and he is supposed to give them to his tenants so we can pay what we owe. These are quarterly bills.

Right after we first moved in, our water was shut off because apparently the previous tenant never paid his bill. Tim, our landlord, took care of it. So he says.

The first bill we actually got was delivered to our mailbox two days before it was due. It had been issued nearly a month previous. And it included two months in which we hadn’t even lived there. Tim had written a note saying that we only owed $50 of the bill, so that’s what we paid (along with a letter to the city explaining this).

A month ago, we got a past due notice of nearly $300. We called Tim, he assured us this was not ours to pay and that he would take care of it.

My partner woke up this morning to hear a large truck idling outside our house, looked outside to see a man walking away from where our water is turned on and off. Sure enough, our water is off. AGAIN.

Tim put our current bill in our mailbox this morning. It was due yesterday, and issued August 13. And sure enough, the nearly $300 from before had never been paid.

It’s not like he couldn’t have put it in our mailbox before now. He’s been in our neighborhood every day for the past two weeks.

And now the panic is setting in for me. I’m working from home today, so that sucks. And money is so far beyond tight that it isn’t funny. I hadn’t expected to get a bill until October - if we’d actually gotten the bill when it was issued, we would have been prepared and this wouldn’t be happening.

Trying to breathe. Having a really hard time holding it together, and of course today is the day that I have to learn something new at work and I’m just really, really struggling with it all.

samyulle:

don’t you hate it when you’re reading a chapter and then it’s coming to its climax and omg what’s gonna happen, then woops, your eyes dart to the last line and you spoil yourself and hate yourself for it

Ugh. I did this with The Hunger Games. Mockingjay, in particular. The chapter where Peeta returns. It was going to be my last chapter before bed until I read that. Heart skipped a beat, I stifled a scream, and had to keep reading.