3

Content warning: allusions to child trauma

I am 3

I like dolls

My doll is my best friend

We share clothes

He is 33

I am his doll

He wants to marry me

He wishes I was older

I am 3

I want to marry him when I am big

So I do what he says

In my doll’s dress

He is 33

He smells like mommy’s cigarettes

He asks me to pose

He groans because I listen so good

I think he is my friend

I am 33

I understand

I was not a doll

To pose

To play with

I was 3

He was 33

Beat

Content warning: allusions to traumatic events

I run, I walk, I jump

I laugh

For it is joyful

I run faster, I walk farther, I jump higher

My heart quickens its beats

My breath becomes shallow

My body remembers

Remembers fast breath and racing heart

I am afraid

For my body remembers

I am back in time

When my heart pounded

And my breath caught

And I could not get away

The joy of movement is far

I beat and I breathe against the fear and memory

If only I’d remember the joy

Un/Reliable

I wanted to be the one who was everything to everyone

I wanted to be the colleague that could carry every task with grace

I wanted to be the student who always did all of their homework and the extra credit

I wanted to be the partner that would do anything for their love

I wanted to be the friend who was always present

Instead

I am the one who sleeps

I am the one who carries memories that bring nightmares

I am the one who is absent because of pain

I am the one who cannot

I cannot be there, I cannot do it

The pain suffocates

The memories make themselves known in who I am and what I do

Will I ever be whole?

The Dream

I have a recurring dream. In my dream, something terrible is happening. The world is ending, a volcano is erupting, I am being hunted or abused. The threat varies though it’s usually apocalyptic in nature. However, there is one variable that remains constant. My family is with me, and my parents won’t listen to me. I tell them not to go up the mountain because I can see it is actually a volcano about to erupt; they laugh and continue on. There are zombie hordes descending upon us, and I tell my parents how to avoid them, and they ignore me. A serial killer is hunting me, and they scoff.

I have had this dream maybe 100 times. They laugh, they ignore, they scoff, they belittle, and I wake up feeling sad.

It’s not just a dream for me. It’s a manifestation of a lifetime of feelings about how my parents regard me. I wake up feeling sad because this is real for me. I no longer discuss many of my thoughts and feelings with my parents because my parents—what would you guess their reaction often is based on my dream? When I’ve been hurt by something they’ve done, they’ve blamed me, they’ve belittled me, they’ve ignored me. It rarely ends with an apology, and it never ends with change. Many, many of my memories are of me trying to talk to them about what I think, what I feel, and it ending with a poor reflection on me. They walk away always correct and always blameless, and I am the deficient one, the mistaken one.

I used to share my thoughts and feelings with them. I shared with them because I wanted to be close to them. I wanted them to understand, be compassionate, loving. I wanted them to be proud of who I actually was. I was disappointed often. My parents don’t handle feelings well. It’s not that they are cruel or hard people; the opposite actually. I think one simple explanation is that it is easier for them to blame or ignore me than it is to do anything else.

I stopped sharing most of what I feel with them. If something enormous is happening, I will tell them. Otherwise, my feelings remain with me and a few trusted confidantes.

I am sure there is a camp of people that think this is how it ought to be: that adults should be confiding in peers, not parents; that parents are not meant to be friends. How my relationship translates with my parents though is that nothing of substance can be discussed because my thoughts and feelings are simply invalid. In their eyes, I am emotional and somehow lacking in my ability to contribute meaningfully. I know my parents love me. I know they love me a lot and would literally give their lives for me. I know this. But I also know that if I bring up how I see the world—socially, politically, emotionally—I will be labeled as “brainwashed” or not knowing enough. That habit that they got into of dismissing and denigrating what was so precious to me has seeped into anything that matters. My thoughts are not valid. My perspective is not valid. I am simply ‘The Emotional One’—misguided, ill-informed, and mistaken in anything I disagree with my parents on.

Their default has caused serious harm to our relationship. There have been a few times where my dad has asked for my opinion on something, and I’ve truly treasured those experiences. I have also noticed my mom being more and more compassionate with me, especially when it comes to my health. In general, however, their habit is to ignore and deflect rather than question their own behaviors in a way that brings about change in themselves.

In my dream, the world is ending and they walk straight into their own destruction, despite my cries, my pleas. In spite of what I can see so clearly. Regardless of what I know. But I am emotional, so they won’t listen.

The Pain & I

Ever since I started getting migraines, and those migraines became chronic, my life has changed. Life is change, but I have not been enjoying these changes.

I feel useless. I feel worthless at times. I feel trapped, hopeless, sad.

The pain can be consuming. It radiates all around the top half of my skull and throbs. It makes me sick. It makes my vision wobble and sparkles float around the edges.

The pain—or The Pain—locks me in rooms. It traps me in darkness. I keep my eyes closed. I push my face into pillows or into my palms. I remind myself to breathe from my stomach, but I don’t really want to breathe. The Pain has tentacles that reach out to all the lights in the room and turns up their brightness until I want to be sick.

It whispers to me—its words as inviting as silk as each word stabs me—that there is no hope, there is no “getting better” or “being well”. There is no return to normal. This is my new normal. This is me now. The Pain & I.

The migraines make me tired. I’m so far from what I used to be: productive, active, a force, a star. I’m a shell now. Or, at least that is what The Pain says. I am absent from work. I miss school. I get behind. I constantly need people—colleagues, students, family, friends—to be compassionate. I can’t finish in time. I can’t work faster. This is my new reality. And people must accommodate that reality. They must accommodate me more than they probably accommodate others, and it makes me feel even more guilt.

The Pain makes me believe that it would be better for everyone else if I died. Only then would I cease to be a burden. Only then would people be able to stop waiting on me, waiting on my work to be finished, waiting on my emails, waiting on me to call back. Only then could friends find more present, more there friends. Everyone could move on and be happier, freer. I wouldn’t be an anchor, a downer.

It’s hard to fight these thoughts. It’s hard to be unreliable, to be bad at things, to be someone that I imagine people eagerly anticipating the day they can be free of me.

I’m going to fight The Pain. I’m going to try to come up with strategies to be mentally and physically healthy, to live my “best life” even with chronic pain. However, today, today I am sad. I am hurting emotionally. I feel without hope. I feel despair. I feel the pressure of tears wanting to break from my eyes. It is hard today. It has been hard for many days.