Many Years of Poems

Nicholas and Cliff are both mad at me about smoking. Cliff got mad because I went out and smoked in the car because it's raining outside. Nicholas says I act like a junkie where cigs are concerned.

I feel like I need something to calm my nerves. I backed myself off the Buspar and Klonopin and now I am not taking anything to settle my nerves. Smoking calms me down when I'm feeling anxious.

Part of me would like to end that addiction. It's not healthy, it's expensive, everybody imaginable wants me to quit, there are ninety bazillion reasons not to smoke. But I can't get away from the comfort I get from smoking a cigarette.

I withdrew from the _survivors_ group because Nicholas wanted me to; he said that it was only a painful reminder of what I've been through and that I should give it up. So I did.

But I feel like no one will let me have my comforts. I feel like I'm being asked to make all these changes and nothing is familiar or comfortable any more.

Cliff just read over my shoulder and said, "Why did you stop taking your anxiety medicines? I'd rather you were taking the anxiety medicines than smoking." Good question.

I backed off the Buspar because I didn't have any refills for it, and I felt like nobody trusts me with the Klonopin after what I did two weeks ago with the suicide attempt (overdose of Klonopin). But I guess I can refill the Klonopin and/or talk to my psychiatrist about writing me a script for the Buspar. (I was originally prescribed the Buspar by a psychiatrist at the hospital. I don't think my psychiatrist has ever prescribed it to me.)

I probably should talk this over with Patricia (my new therapist) when I see her again next Monday. I need some new comforts in order to get rid of the cigarettes. I just don't know what else to do.

I really want a cig but Nicholas just confiscated my smokes and won't let me smoke one for another two hours because I just smoked one an hour ago.

I had to beg Nicholas to let me have a cigarette. I feel like nothing I do is good enough for anybody. I'm always doing things for everybody else and I feel stretched too thin. I want to run away from my thoughts and I can't. Nowhere I run is far enough. So I dump them here.

I went out and bought a bottle of mango rum for Nicholas because he self-medicates with alcohol to help his thoughts slow down enough for him to communicate difficult things (read: emotional things) clearly. It's not healthy for him, just like smoking is not healthy for me, but I did it because it works in the moment. When I brought that up to him in the fuss for a smoke, he said I was using it as leverage.

Why is it that the unhealthy coping mechanisms work so well? Smoking, drinking, drugs, cutting... I could keep going. Nothing calms me down like pain and the sight of my blood on my wrists but I can't do that. Cliff throws a fit. I don't ever cut deep enough to really harm myself, just enough for a sharp pain and a little blood. I'd really like to cut right now. I think it would help me calm down, but I can't. I think smoking a joint would probably help too, but there again, Cliff threw an absolute fit the last time I took a hit at a party.

I just feel like I'm helping everybody else cope and nobody's trying to help me cope.

I probably need to go back to counseling but where am I going to get the money for it? I wish I could go back to Renee. I have a feeling that Jewish Family and Community Services is going to bounce me from intern to intern so I can't get settled with one counselor and get any real work done.

Part of me would like to go in my room and scream. I just feel so unsettled and agitated today. I can't type worth a damn. Only the fact that I can't stand to leave errors in my writing is keeping this entry from looking completely crazy.

Okay, so I thought Nicholas had tossed the pack of smokes. He didn't, but we only shared three last night, so that's better even than I was doing before the scare. We haven't smoked at all today although I asked if we could have one after we were...um...well...naughty earlier. He said we could have one after supper, which will be spaghetti.

I really want some chips so I can eat the salsa I made. I also need to pick up some salad mix for noshing on, since Nicholas' tummy has been a bit upset and he needs more fresh veggies. Won't hurt the rest of us either. But nobody really feels like going anywhere today, me included.

Okay, so I committed to Nicholas that I would quit smoking by Yule; he's giving me til Christmas proper. But I have until 25 December to quit smoking.

In August, I smoked a pack a day. Now I'm down to four to six cigarettes a day, shared with Nicholas. I found that I can't smoke my old brand any more; they make me want to throw up. I bought a pack a week or so ago, smoked three drags and threw the cigarette out the car window, tried very hard not to throw up all over myself, and gave the rest of the pack to my neighbor who smokes. I told him the cigarette fairy visited him. :)

I have a quit buddy in Nicholas, and in quelque_part, with whom I've been emailing about quit strategies and coping mechanisms besides a cig.

I can do yoga. I have a game for the Xbox called Yourself Fitness which has a yoga feature, so I can go do a half-hour of yoga when I want a smoke. I can deep breathe. I also have a dietary supplement to help the ol' bod detoxify and it came with a support CD that I need to start listening to every day.

If I wait for my life to be free of stress, or even minimally stressful, I'll wait forever. Dr. Holmes said I have to quit by 35 or she's taking me off my birth control pills, which work really well for me, and I don't want to quit using them. I'll be 33 in January.

So cross your fingers for me that it'll work this time. I really do need to quit. I'm tired of coughing (Nicholas freaks when I cough; he says it sounds horrible). Everybody in my life wants me to quit.

So here I go again, slowly cutting back, with an eye on being completely smoke-free by Christmas.

I feel like I can't cope any more.

No matter what I do, somebody is angry with me. I've mentioned feeling wrong-footed with Cliff all the time, and now Nicholas is mad at me about my smoking.

I feel like I can't calm down at all. Hot baths don't help, the Klonopin only helps if I take three or four of them, smoking helps for a little while.

I just want to give up and quit trying to make anybody happy because I'm constantly failing at it any way.

I think I've worked out a way around Cliff's emotional jealousy issues without hurting Nicholas. I think I've figured out how to explain to Cliff that I can (and do) love Nicholas without taking anything away from him. We shall see if it actually works the way I think it will.

Nicholas is still here and is in fact within arm's reach of me now. We're puttering around on our respective computers.

Cliff brought a cold home from work and now we are all three sick. If Dixie catches it, she'll probably land back in the hospital again. Jeez.

Nicholas may be moving in with us sooner than originally planned. I would have preferred to have Dixie and Nancy out of here first, but it looks like he may need someplace to stay sooner than that, and I'd rather squeeze him in here than worry (as I will no matter how many times he tells me not to) about whether or not he's sleeping indoors and eating regularly.

I so do not want to put him on that train tomorrow night.

Cliff doesn't particularly seem to want him to leave either. Nicholas was puttering around in the computer room and Cliff was taking a bath and told me to "go check the lottery ticket. If we won, then Nicholas doesn't have to go back to North Carolina." I think he's just happy to have someone to play and discuss Warcrack with who doesn't give me the willies the way Tyler sometimes does. (Tyler finds child-like women attractive, and that's always made me a little uneasy.)

Cliff and Nicholas have suddenly become hell bent that I should start playing Warcrack as well. Nicholas confessed to me that it was so they could game and not feel like they were neglecting me. I've created a character and puttered around with her a little bit, but I don't think it will ever become the addiction for me that it is for them. I don't know. I was iffy about tabletop gaming the first time I did it, and now I love it, so no telling, really.

( Sex talk and WAY TMI, so skip it if you like. )

Oh, and my stepdad has seen Nicholas with us, because I ran out of gas on Friday trying to make it two more miles to the bank to cash Cliff's paycheck and to the gas station and my stepdad had to save my ass for the 902nd time or so. Bill didn't say anything, and I was a bit nervous so I forgot to introduce them to each other like I meant to. I don't particularly relish the thought of cluing my parents in to my love life because I just generally don't tell them much about it, but if/when Nicholas comes to stay they'll find out eventually that he's more than a friend to me. I'd actually rather tell my daughter than my parents. Mini-me would probably look at me a little funny and then shrug it off. My parents are liable to have a complete cow that I have a fiance AND a lover.

Nicholas has joined Cliff's campaign to get me to quit smoking. I presently have a horrible cough, partially from smoking and partially from this stupid cold. I had a coughing fit a bit ago and Nicholas took my hand and looked me dead in the eyes with those lovely dark eyes of his and said, "I really wish you'd quit smoking." I really should anyway. It's just that the habit is so damn hard to break.

I really should get some sleep. I'm just not as sleepy as I should be, given how...um...busy I've been.

Cliff is at work, so I get the big computer.

We're probably going to have to cut back on a few things to be able to afford the necessities but hopefully we'll be able to hang on to the internet because I would really be hating life with no 'net. Cliff says I have to quit smoking because we can't afford cigarettes any more. I told him I'm not responsible if I kill his sister.

Speaking of smoking, I'm going to go see if I can bum a smoke from my neighbor.

I'm very anxious today. I want to hurt myself again, but I don't want to go back into the hospital. I'm trying to distract myself by chatting with my friends Kevin and Mike but every time the chat goes quiet I have to restrain myself from pinching and scratching at my arms.

I took two extra Klonopin but it's not really helping.

I wish I could have a cigarette but I really want to quit.

I feel torn in so many directions.

I have now been awake for something approaching 24 hours. I should be dead to the world, all warm and snuggly in my bed with my honey.

My entire body is stiff and will not relax. My mind will not shut up; thoughts are bouncing around in my head like those bouncy balls I used to buy out of gumball machines when I was a kid and drive my mother insane with by bouncing them in her kitchen while she was trying to cook.

I feel like I'm on the edge of a precipice, like something is about to fall out of me and I'm tensed against it.

I don't think my muscles were this contracted in labor, but it's been almost 16 years so maybe my memory is faulty on that count.

I want to cry but the only tears I get are the tears that come out when I yawn. For whatever bizarre biochemical reason, my eyes tear up when I yawn; everybody thinks I'm crying and I'm not. It's just that I yawned. My eyes have always done that and I've never gotten a satisfactory answer as to why.

Am I avoiding sleep to avoid nightmares? Am I about to remember something new?

I'm safe now. I have a roof over my head and food on my table and a man who worships the ground I walk on.

So maybe my mind is going to release something that it didn't feel safe releasing before?

I got all righteously angry earlier over a post in survivors about "Christians" trying to force a survivor to forgive her assailant. That shit pisses me off but fast.

Then I got all righteously angry about the "false memory syndrome" idiots as you saw in my previous post.

So maybe I'm just too pissed off to sleep.

Not that righteous anger isn't a good cleansing sort of anger, and I tend to get that way in defense of other survivors. I get all mama-tiger and GRRRRRR at the people who would re-victimize someone who's doing his or her damnedest to heal.

(a few hours later)

Now I'm just awake. I'm not as tense as I was, but I still don't feel like I can go to sleep. I'm plenty tired, but it's like I'm afraid to try to sleep.

When I picked up Cliff from work this morning, he was sleepy too, and we got in bed together and snuggled and had sex. For the first time in a while I had to remind myself that it was Cliff touching me and not my dad. I snuggled up to him afterward and smelled him and it was okay. The smell of his hair comforts me; I like his shampoo.

Maybe I'm triggered by all the posts I read in survivors yesterday and that's why I can't sleep. Hypervigilant, which I'm always guilty of.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I was on such an even keel and now it seems to be all out of whack.

I really want a cigarette but I can't have one. I have to learn some other coping mechanism than polluting my lungs.

I thought I was okay.

I thought I was tougher than this.

I want to cut myself but that shouldn't be an option either. While probably less harmful in the long run than smoking, I shouldn't be doing it. But part of me is saying, just a little cut and you'll feel better. A little bit of blood and you'll know you're real.

Part of me wants to scream and cry for no apparent reason whatsoever. I thought I was past the screaming and crying stage.

I know what happened to me. Maybe not all of it, but I know. I own my life. My father molested and raped me for years until I got up the guts to tell my mother what he was doing and she put a stop to that so fast it probably made his head spin. He terrorized me with his alcoholism and unpredictable temper until I was afraid to defy him at all, and then he used his power to take my innocence and shatter my psyche. I know what happened to me.

And I know what my first husband did. He isolated me from my friends, controlled the way I dressed and looked, disparaged my family, and raped me when I was crying "No" and pushing him away. I know what happened to me.

And intellectually I know I didn't deserve it.

But I feel deeply cracked by it all. Damaged down to the core of my self. Broken in ways that may never be fixed.

I wonder why anybody loves me, much less loves me as much as Cliff does, and I'm afraid to fully trust in that love because love and pain walk hand in hand so much of the time.

I tell myself when I'm with Cliff, "He loves you and he won't hurt you. He loves you and he won't hurt you."

Maybe I just need to go hold my teddy bear and have a good cry. Maybe then I could sleep. Right now I feel so upset and panicky that I can't relax enough to sleep.