Whoa its been a hot minute since I've blogged. Menopause is evidentially kryptonite for my writers muse.
Common cough up something old woman.
***************trigger warning - abuse aftermath discussion*********************
Twice recently I was pointed out and honored for the work I do in my job.
My soul glitches a bit, like a dog petted the wrong way when the spot light swivels and catches me.
I like to be invisible. A quite person gliding through life unnoticed.
Why?
That easy.
My past has left permanently scarred. If I was seen...I was visible and the abusers could find me and hurt me. School hood bullies couldn't torment me if I was inviable in the shadows.
Being invisible was a coping skill. Imagine being in chronic mental pain from abuse and no one seeing you.
no one seeing the pain that you were in...
No one stopping to notice the blood weeping from the cuts on your arms. All those little red mouths in your skin screaming and no one hearing anything...
lost and alone, while everyone around you not seeing you ...ignored you, until they had need of your body.
It doesn't start as a coping skill. It starts as a wickedly painful realization. No one can see the pain your in....and worse no one is going to come to help you or save you.
no one cares your soul is fracturing and dying agonizing deaths.
oh make no mistake we want to be seen. We want to be helped, we want to be saved, We want the danger to away. To have the free floating feeling leave our hearts, we want to be grounded and planted and be accepted as a member of the human race.
and when we try to be we are savagely brutalized, and used like trash.
Abuse victims just come to the understanding.. we are invisible. This brings a calmness to the chaos.
If we are invisible, people are suppose to ignore us, not see us, leave us alone.
as simple as that, our young brains add order WHERE NONE SHOULD BE.
I know for me I skirted and dodged recognition like a gold medalist. In the years Richard and I worked together a frequent thing I heard him say was, "Paja, you are the hardest person to give a complement too."
I was too. I didn't like how it made me feel.
It made me feel ....seen.
It was disturbing to suddenly materialize in the sunny world from my dark shadowed world.
We never dissected that and look at it deeper, he and I had more pressing things to do. Like keep me alive.
I would work on that later on the message boards, and in helping others with the same issue, I learned why it ruffled me so.
At the very, very primal level, being complemented pinged the hidden part of me that claimed I was invisible. A bright blazing light screaming down into my soul burning that thought from my head; and replacing it with a new one:
You are not invisible ...you never were, people saw what was going on and they CHOOSE TO DO NOTHING.
This is why I would cringe and skirt complements/acknowledgement. Shrug them off and refuse to accept them.
you're telling me the sky is blue after I spent my whole life thinking it was green?
I can't breath in this world where I am seen.
I.
can't .
breath.
no one is coming for me...I am left here to linger in this dark place ...they are looking riiiiiight at me and choosing not to see me.
Iz onwee four. to widdle to safe my selfs. Weft in the darness wif no lanturn.
Weeve us be. weeve us unseen...it hurts less.
But no.
Life continues to see me. Occasionally, quietly laying awards and recognition at my feet.
I no longer flinch away or feel that lost ancient pain.
It was a quietly understanding one day not long ago.
That the people honoring me....were a different bunch. These amazing people with the brilliant hearts and their kind words...they belonged to the tribe of people WHO WOULD HAVE CHOOSEN TO DO SOMETHING.
Seeing me now, validates me all the way through my system to the blubbery-sobby-snot nosed messed up little one at my core.
And I perk up rather than cringe away... taking another step on my healing journey.
