Dear reader, I am simply fed up :)
Am I doing this right? is now Forever, Selah.
How are you?
How are you keeping?
I am in the weird space we’re all in, taking care.
This was the year I learned about how trauma impacts the brain and how childhood trauma has affected me.
Yes it’s scary. It’s sad too. Very sad. I can’t begin to explain to you how angry I am. Today in therapy I described my anger as a very long road that has no end. You know those pictures you see of a road that just keeps going off into the distance until it disappears? That’s what my anger feels like to me.
Some people don’t mind a long road, they turn on music and can settle in. I’m one of those people. I love driving and I love long drives. I can just sit and stare out and (as long as I got enough sleep the night before!) just put my mind into a different space.
But this road is different because I don’t know if I’m going to get where I want to go. I don’t know if it ends at all and that is the trouble. There’s nowhere to stop and yes I can just stop, I’ve considered that before.
One of my previous posts, I think it deserves a follow up. I wrote about contemplating suicide and how the question of my life has been do I still want to be here. I have landed somewhere on this question and I feel it is necessary to share it. I feel it is maybe a rule I’ve made for myself, that if you have gone to that brink and find your way back, you have to write down the way you took. Maybe for others, but always for yourself.
I think, part of the reason I got here was because of the tools in my pack. One of those tools is spirituality. I have, since I was in maybe kindergarten, maintained that there was a presence out there bigger than me.
What gave me time was being chicken. I was simply too afraid to actually commit suicide. And I have a very low tolerance for unnecessary pain. I wouldn’t say this fear of pain stopped me, I more so decided to put the decision on hold, maybe to build up the courage. But that took time. And in that time, I started to realize that the presence I believed in was possibly more active in my life than I knew.
I grew up in the church, but the people I went to church with were still fearful. They’d pray on Sunday and then fight about money. Or get drunk. Or get high. Or be fearful of being robbed or being attacked or racism. I thought hm, aren’t we children of God? And the bible says right here we should never be afraid? But okay I took in these fearful ideas. So even though I believed in the presence (is it clear I’m talking about God?) I also believed I was being ignored by it. I just figured it was an aberration to be born a black child in a racist society with the childhood I had.
So in the time while I was working to build up my courage to finally Do It, I realized there was a presence in my life. If I sat and thought about it for a while I could see it. This coaxed me away. Just a little bit.
If I was to really respect this presence, then it was possible that the choice of whether or not I am alive isn’t totally mine. Like, what if my breathing in and out is not my responsibility? Of course I could kill myself, but what if actually doing that was a decision above my pay grade? My human brain doesn’t have the capacity to make wise decisions. Shit, my financial situation is enough proof of that. So what business do I have deciding whether I live or die?
Put another way, I decided if there was a possibility I was not in the right frame of mind, I did not want to make a decision to take my own life. I would hate to get up to heaven and be like … damn it.
So that’s that. At least for now.
I could do some DMT and something clicks, but for now this is how I backed away from the decision to commit.
Now where was I…
Yes, turning around from the brink and seeing this long unending road ahead of me. And if I don’t jump I have to walk. And you might say, why does the road have to be anger? why can’t it be something fun or something interesting or—
And I would cut you off and say yes it’s all those things but the anger is still there. Maybe it’s another tool I’ve got in my pack. Like something to make fire with but I’ve just been using it to burn myself because I didn’t know how to handle it.
You might feel this too: uncomfortable with the angry. Who wants to be angry all the time? It sounds exhausting and God forbid I turn into one of those angry black woman, “oh no”. As a side note, I don’t hear people using this as a derogatory term anymore (outside of “real” housewives) and it’s just interesting to me.
Just like I might not be in the right frame of mind to decide to end my life though, I might not be in the right frame of mind to decide things about myself. Like who am I to decide “I am angry” or “I am a victim” or “I am too old” or whatever. I am fed up of all of it and in a void staring ahead of this road but now, if depression is anger turned inwards I am determined to find the right target.
You know what I realized? Trauma can leave you scared of asking for what you need and accepting less than you deserve. And I know for a fact—a FACT—that corporations take advantage of this when it comes to compensation. I’ve seen it in my own life and this is just one of the things that pisses me off. That after all the shit, the humiliation, the fear, the pain. Asking for what I need of my parents and instead being taught asking to be safe could mean more danger. That my mind is twisted up in a way that is painful for me but perfect for a multi-billion dollar corporation to take advantage of.
Turning around from the edge has forced me to face what’s been behind me, but now I am determined. Let’s see where this motherfucker goes.