Pretend

She gazed down at herself. No way, she thought, no way could anyone ever see me as strong?. Do they never see me bite my lip in worry? or how, like at this moment, my toes are pointed together because I'm so unsure of myself?

Gazing around the room she mentally checked off the times when these people had come so close to seeing her break down. Would she be seen as an impostor then? Because that is how she felt when hanging around them. She must never let them see her cry.
She was so torn, torn between confusion that these individuals couldn't see the real her, her pain that made her tear up oh so often, and pride that she has successfully convinced them that she was such a strong person that nothing affected her.
Then for a brief moment she relaxed, and smiled a little smile. The kind that you give when you have a little secret joy inside of your heart. For her it was the joy that her efforts had paid off, and that she had not blown her cover in front of them. It lasted for only small time, a smidgen of a second, before she remembered how much it costs her to not be herself, to play pretend all the time, and then her toes turned inwards towards themselves once again.

ʃeɪm

This is something I found while cleaning my room.

"As a part of the wounds we receive growing up, we come to believe that some part of us, maybe every part, is marred. Shame enters in a makes its crippling home deep within our hearts."

Shame is what makes us look away, so we avoid eye contact with strangers and friends.
Shame is that feeling that haunts us, the sense that is someone really knew us, they would shake their heads in disgust and run away.
Shame makes us feel, no, believe, that we do not measure up.
Shame grips our hearts and pins them down, ever ready to point out our failures and judge our worth.
Shame keeps us pinned down and gasping, believing that we deserve to suffocate.

- If we were not deemed worthy of lovve as children, it is incredibly difficult to believe we are worth loving as adults. -

Shame says we are unworthy, broken and beyond repair.
Shame causes us to hide. We are afraid of being truly seen. We put up protective, defensive walls that warn others to keep their distance.

* Hide your heart * You are a disappointment * Worthless * No one cares * No one wants to care * You are alone * It must be me * Something is fundamentally wrong with me *

I live a life of selfprotection because I live through a broken heart.

No more.

Breathe in. Breathe deep. Calm down. Exhale. Look around. Did anyone see? No, no one is looking at me at all. Good.
I have to watch myself. Can't let anyone see the pain in side. Oh, this is a terrible prison I've created for myself. I long to leave but feel so stuck and helpless.
To step outside these walls would mean confronting the pain head-on. How can I even consider that possibility when even now the pain can cripple me and leave me breathless in a matter of moments? I desire to be past all of this. I just want to be out on the otherside. Why do I have to traverse the depths to get there? That's too scary to ever consider. So I guess that this is the way that things are going to be. And I suppose as long as no one notice's that I'm broken I'm doing fine.

Run, run, run away. I don't want to be near you. I don't want you to know who I am.

I desire to be free and unconstrained by all the thoughts and wishes. Nothing should depend on you. I am self-sufficient and capable. I am independent and confident.

I shall not weaken under the pressure. There will be no bowing to the feelings that attempt to pull me along.

I know I know better. I know who I am am and will not let you see through me until I appear to be nothing more than a figment of your imagination, or a distant memory of something past. Rather I will stand tall and remember my true self.

Do not try to dissuade me from the truth because that would only incur my wrath. The lies you speak cannot, and can never hold me again.

I am love, loved and lovable.

I think the problem or rather reason why I don't write very frequently is because I'm trying so hard to be smart. I want to come up with something witty to say or be able to perfectly articulate whatever sentiment it is that I'm feeling.
Well, I've given up. I am now just going to write whatever and try not to care how it comes out.
This may mean that sometimes my post my having nothing of interest for anyone other than myself but it is much better than not writing at all :P

Lately, I have been quite enjoying my job. The Sleepless Goat Café is a strange and sometimes wonderful place. I used to visit all the time with my friends frequently just getting a cup of tea and then sitting and chatting for hours on end which is something I still love to do. Now I am being trained to be one of their cooks and I love it. To me it feels like I'm creating something that someone else will enjoy. Plus, it sure smells good.

That is one of the few things that I have decided I want to do with my life. I'm not sure exactly what form it will be in (surely it won't tick to food forever) but creating is something that I find intriguing, and joyful, and frustrating, and challenging. There is so much variance to the forms which it can come in.
So now when people ask me what I want to do with my life I can answer them simply with one word: Create!

Happy?

I feel like crap. Again. and It sucks. It seems that I can't staying feeling happy, even when things are going great. Which they are not. or at least I don't see them that way.
I can generally always reason away why I feel how I do but it never changes the fact that that is the way I feel. So I start to want to not feel. I feel like crap so often that I think that throwing away the sparse good wouldn't be that bad. I just don't want to hurt. or if I'm going to hurt then I want to know why. Control my pain? That doesn't sound so bad, until you consider what people do to control their pain; they turn to others things that either make them feel better, feel more in control, or they cause themselves pain so they know when its coming. So maybe not the best idea ever. . . unfortunately its appealing to be able to control your own pain. To not care about whether your heart aches, about whether or not people always leave you, or treat you poorly.
Argh, but why do I feel so alone? I'm not. There are a great many people who care a lot about me. So why does my mind have to descend so quickly into these thoughts or despair and hopelessness. Life is not hopeless, quite the contrary, it is full of so many possibilities.
So why, oh why do I live my life like the lies are truth. My goodness even the guy at blockbuster can correct me for the wrong conclusion that I jump to.
I was supposed to drive the bus. Did I ? who knows? All I know now is that I seem to be hopping aboard ever run away train to see how far away I can get before I can catch up with myself. Where am I going?

Some days… oh some days. Why do I feel this way? I feel so alone, all by myself despite the loving people who surround me. How can I feel so isolated?
Why is it not possible for me to accept and believe people when they tell me that they care? I want to feel the love, believe that I am lovable, but it is so hard coming from a place where I was never told that I was loved. Even their actions, or maybe especially their actions made any other belief seem ridiculous. I need to defend myself, trust no one, and protect myself from all the harsh words. The harsh words that continue to resound in my head, which simply get louder when accompanied by the lack of action from those who were supposed to care most. They reinforce. Continually.
So now, even though things have changed - circumstances, the words people tell me – I still hear what they used to tell me, because I haven’t heard the new words, the love, long enough for them to actually sink in and become real enough to shape how I view myself.
Instead I just feel alone.

Spiralling

As she stood facing the mirror Sara contemplated the events that led here. She didn't quite understand how the briefest of encounters with him could send her spiralling down into the abyss that filled her conscious.
It all started simple enough, with friendship. He was the loudest person she'd ever met which scared her since she was so quiet, but he could quickly disarm her refined defensiveness. I suppose that was the issue. He could disarm her and get her to open up about the things she really didn't want anyone to know. The kind of things that make you afraid that people would never look at you the same after hearing them. But she told him anyways.
For awhile it was great, she continued to open up and let the friendship develop, but then how she felt about him changed. Try as she might she just couldn't go back to the way it was before, and worst of all he could see the difference. While at first he seemed to feel the same way, somewhere along the way that changed, leaving Sara feeling so alone, abandoned and without hope that anyone would ever feel the same way about her as she did him.
Not only that but she could not escape him. Their lives were to twisted together for her to make a clean break and separate herself. Nor did she want to because above all she valued that friendship. It had changed who she was, and without it she felt this terrible gaping hole.
And then, after weeks of mending things, just as she thought she was going to be fine, he gave her this look. This look which penetrated her very core and made her feel like he could see and understand everything about her and he didn't care.
She had to escape. This pain, this fear, this insecurity drove her to run as fast as she could to a safe place. Somewhere where she could be by herself, and collect herself. The Bathroom! But as she stood looking at herself in the mirror, all she could see was his face. All she could hear were his words.
Yet instead of collecting herself and dismissing the whole situation as an overreaction she just crumpled; fell to the floor and wept because all she could hear were the lies. The lies that she had believed ever since she was a child. The lies that she knew weren't true but were proven to be correct over and over again by situation just like this one. Broken and hopeless she sat there and cried.

I am a conformist. I don't really every stand up for what I believe in when it comes to something that might end up in an arguement. I don't like conflict. I don't even like explaining myself most of the time. I do not enjoy telling people how I feel, why I feel that way or even letting them see how I truly feel.

I have put myself into boxes, where I try to make myself fit. I have determined that those boxes are safe, and as long as I don't stray from them then I stand a far less chance of being hurt.

But if I stay in my little boxes (for my boxes are small and limiting) then it makes it really hard to reach out and truly get to know other people.

I don't want to conform to the patterns of this harsh unloving world, but it is so difficult to live counter-culturally in the western world. We all live separated from one another. We don't deal with our problems. We ignore them and others. This is why I live in boxes.

I don't want to. But I do want to.

So I am trying to change the boxes I live in. Some are easier than others to change. I believe that I may even be able to break down some of them. But there are others that I am afraid to change. I feel that I need to hide them in other boxes rather than decorate them or open them because that would draw to much attention.

The boxes that I hide are the ones that are helping me conform. They contain my pain. The pain of not being accepted for who I am. The pain that leads me to believe that the world must be right and if I follow all of their rules very very carefully then the pain will go away. But the world is lying to me. The more I keep that pain to myself, hidden amongst the boxes, the less likely I am to let others to see what is in the other boxes. Less likely to show people who I am and let them love me for me and take away my box of pain.