How long?

Nicholas and I had a long talk tonight. He asked me how long I was going to let my father ruin my life, how long it would be before I let go of my pain and got on with living.

It's a good question.

In a way, the pain is comfortable and familiar. I have a hard time imagining a me not in pain.

I've had a hard time with body memories today. I had to leave the bedroom because I just couldn't stand being touched, even by Cliff and Nicholas who love me and would never hurt me.

What was I meant to be, before my father programmed me to think that love equals pain and touch means bad things are going to happen to me? What else am I besides this collection of old pain?

I am a writer, a cross-stitcher, a seamstress (although not a fabulous one), a calligrapher, a cat lover, a believer in causes (GLBT rights, animal rights, natural living, urban homesteading if I could where I live now), a musician, a cook, a homemaker.

So how do I let go of the pain and be all those things without constant reminders of the pain?

I thought about writing and performing a ritual to destroy my father's influence over me. I'm just not sure how to do it.

It would have to be a proper ritual. Calling the quarters, honoring the Masculine and Feminine of Deity, asking their help, writing out the negative things that I want destroyed from my life, burning the writing in a ritual container, burning a white candle for purity, bidding the quarters farewell, and closing the circle.

I think I need to go to Earth Gifts tomorrow and get a ritual container (a metal plate or a large cauldron) and a white pillar candle.

The ritual

Well, I wrote my ritual.

Jen, can we borrow your backyard for a ritual space at some date to be worked out later between your and Rip's work schedules? Sunday would be ideal, as the moon is waning still, and it is my father's birthday.

I used my calligraphy pen to write out a litany of what he did to me and what I wish to no longer allow him to do. To banish his evil from my life.

I think, with the right people, Cliff, Nicholas, Jen and Rip, hopefully, I can make this ritual work. I think it could be very healing to specifically ritually banish his evil influence from me.

I hope so, anyway. That's the idea.

Little Guy is a kittiot in the Tessa-is-a-kittiot mold

Apparently the weeks that Little Guy was on his own behind the shed at Cliff's work left him afraid that if he doesn't eat everything in sight he won't eat.

He's gotten the message that nobody here is going to hurt him and has become quite the lap slut, coming up to people and wanting to be held and petted. You can hold and pet that kitten for hours and he won't get up and walk away.

But he will eat damn nigh anything. He got in the food bowl this morning when Nancy was feeding Tessa and Sweetie Pie their adult cat food, and then went to his bowl when she fed him his kitten food. And last night I was eating a chimichanga and could not for my life get him to get out of my face. He wanted that food.

Little kittiot. Or should that be kittiette?

Bleah.

I feel despondent and I can't quite define why. Money is tight, which never makes for a good mood. Cliff doesn't feel well. Nicholas seems distant and upset and I can't figure out why exactly.

I just feel hopeless again. Don't worry, I'm not going to do a repeat of Sunday, but I just feel like nothing I can do will help anybody, not even myself.

I feel like shit.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I have no energy, no appetite, and I feel like absolute shit.

I'm scared. My therapy appointment is Tuesday and I'm hoping it will turn out well but I'm scared. I'm going to have to tell my story all over again. I'm going to have to dredge up a bunch of stuff I'd rather not think about all in the hopes that somehow I can heal myself. I'm always afraid when I go to a new therapist that they're not going to believe me, that they're going to think I'm lying about having been sexually abused and raped. It's a groundless fear. I have yet to have a single therapist do that, except for one psychiatrist who asked me if what my dad did to me was "just statutory rape", as if that makes it any better that he raped his 11-year-old daughter. It's just paranoia on my part, I guess.

For so many years, abuse victims were not believed, and I came up in the years when they were finally starting to believe that people could and did hurt children like that. I remember the invalidation of "nobody's father would do that" kinds of things.

But I remember the pain. Sometimes I remember it so vividly it's like I'm back there again.

How do I reclaim myself from this? How do I pick up the pieces of Nora and turn them into a whole woman?

I read the bio for the therapist I'm going to see. Her name is Patricia and she sounds really awesome and part of me is really hopeful that she'll be able to guide me to wholeness. But part of me is a scared kid, never mind that I'm well past childhood now.

Sometimes the world is a big scary place.

And somehow I'm supposed to work through this emotional turmoil and go take care of my household, go buy groceries and cook supper and do all that stuff while I feel so crappy.

I need something to make me smile. I wish the cats would do something funny or something to make me laugh.

Part of me says, "Just push the emotions down and fucking well do what you need to be doing!" and part of me says, "Just how the fuck am I supposed to do that?"

I just want to chain-smoke and cry but I can't do that. I have to find a way to cope.

I tried to watch "Clue" (very goofy movie based on the board game of all things) last night but I fell asleep about 30 minutes into the movie. I was trying to cheer myself up.

I really am trying. It's just such a struggle sometimes to get up and get dressed and comb my hair and brush my teeth and function. Days like today, I'd really rather just lie in bed and stare into space. But that's not healthy either. I feel like it's an invisible struggle, like nobody understands how hard it is to make myself do the mundane things I have to do.

I just feel scared and hurt and alone.

I changed my profile

I wanted it to reflect other things besides my pain. I want to try to become something besides a walking wound.

Right now I can't stand to have anything on my wrists because it reminds me of my father's hands on my wrists pinning me down so he could rape me. It's cold today for Florida and I have a sweatshirt on and I can't stand to have the cuffs down on my wrists. I can't stand for my wrists to be warm.

Part of me wants to cut my wrists to let the blood out so they'll be cold and won't feel this any more. Cutting is not an option for me any more, but I want to so badly. It's not a suicidal thing, just a self-injury thing.

Nicholas has hinted pretty strongly that he would like to make love with me and I'm not sure I can today. I'm just too emotional today to be able to handle it, even though he's a wonderful, gentle lover. I don't want to be naked. I feel too vulnerable even dressed.

It's a problem I hadn't really foreseen but I should have. Nicholas needs lovemaking to make him feel loved and wanted. I like to make love, I really do. But sometimes I just can't do it emotionally. I want to make him feel loved and desirable and that particular part of masculine that has to do with feeling sexy. But some days, I just can't do it.

I feel so many things. I feel vulnerable and wounded and scared. I feel alone, and I feel like I should be alone, like I'm not fit company for human or beast. I'd like to cry but I just can't. I feel locked up in my face, like tears just will not come even though I want them to.

I want to just cuddle and talk, but I'm not sure that's going to be enough for Nicholas tonight. I hate feeling this way. I hate my head.