Anger

Kaleidoscope (Part 4)

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Drown and Drop Neglect

To drown is a beautiful thing.

Do you remember why I named it drowning? Because there is a safety there, an assurance there. A sort of peace there, when you’re holding me under the surface.

It’s something I have only ever experienced when submerged in water and sinking. It’s a letting go. A letting go of control, a quiet release and acceptance that I have only ever before come across when beneath the water, still and silent and unconcerned with life or death.

I found that in you… and I named it drowning. “Subspace” isn’t the right word, at least not for me. “Flying” intimates some form of conscious control over where you are going.

But there is no control when you drown. There’s only water and weightlessness and silence.

Before you, only in the embrace of water had I ever allowed such a full and complete release of control and responsibility.

That peace? It was one of the strongest lures for me where my fixation on death was concerned, although I didn’t realize the correlation until recently. I didn’t realize that YOU giving me that peace was a part of what made those cravings for death ease. I can’t say it was the sole reason my suicidal urges slipped away, my medication is a huge factor, but… that doesn’t change that the peace you gave me in those moments provided me with something I needed that I thought only able to be reached in death.

And then… it was gone. The possessive intensity and confident assurance you had possessed turned into a needy cling and desperation. A desperation that flavored the water of the drown and made it impossible to sink as deeply as I once had.

And the drop that came after, that horrible torturous time of vulnerability that ravaged my insides and tore them to ragged shreds…. you were no longer able to assuage it. Not because you weren’t there, but because you weren’t… you. You were too preoccupied to be attentive and focused.

And then you were too preoccupied to even tell I was drowning at all… or dropping in the days after.

In that other site, we tried the last time. It wasn’t the first time the drown had faltered or the neglect had happened… but it was the last.

Because you had to ask if I drowned, which I had. And then you had to ask if I dropped, which I had. Yet, when I said no, you were too far gone to realize I’d lied. You didn’t even bring up a token protest of “Are you sure?”  Nothing.    There had been a time when you would never have let that answer go so easily, even if you couldn’t tell I’d lied you would have dug at it.

And that’s when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

I cried. I cried a lot that night, and then I closed it away. I slammed a door on the drop and forced it down until it strangled in on itself and shriveled away. It didn’t die easily, but it did die eventually. And I shut down that side of myself, the one that looked to you for protection and sought you for that taste of the peace only you could provide.

I realized that side of me couldn’t survive in that neglectful environment. It was safer to close it off than allow it to die.

Kaleidoscope (Part 3)

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The Almighty Cling

Funny enough, this doesn’t have to do with your obsessions where I am concerned (which, over time, I’d come actually to find reassuring).   An obsession that has slacked quite a bit over the two years that our issues have been ongoing.

It’s about what took the place of your obsession.

Instead of wanting to know how my day was, it was all about “did you think about me?” Instead of expressing that you missed me on any particular day, it was “did you miss me? do you still love me?”

Instead of expressing interest in me, it became all about you, and about your worries and fears of losing me.

It was the difference between a crushing hug and draped arm around me to hold me close, and the grappling clinging hands of desperation that I couldn’t assuage or appease.

No matter what I said or how hard I tried, it was never enough.

This is something that I usually deal with in my personal estimation of myself, but I was unprepared to deal with feeling that judgement from another… even if not directly expressed as such.

In the over nine years we have been together, you have always shared your troubles with me and let me help you with the burden of your worries. But this was different. And, in some ways, perhaps it isn’t only that, but also that you stopped helping me with my own.

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Reciprocation Issues

You stopped asking. You stopped caring… or maybe you just stopped showing me you cared. All you cared about was your own fears and worries and desperation. Mine didn’t matter and became invisible to you, where once you were so keen on watching me and watching over me that I didn’t even need to express them and you picked up on it.

I went from someone at the beginning of our relationship who always tried to hide their problems and issues, and yet you dug them out anyway, perceptive in picking them up and digging until you found their roots…. To someone that was used to you picking these things up and didn’t fight so hard to hide them anymore.

To no longer hiding them not because you always dug them out, but because you stopped. My issues could be broadcast right on my sleeve, written across my chest, or blazoned over my forehead…. but you weren’t interested because you were too preoccupied elsewhere. You weren’t looking anymore for anything other than “is he leaving me??”

This left me feeling crippled, and rather than allow my vulnerability to be seen by all and become something that could be dangerous to me and you both, I closed it all away and shut it all down. You weren’t there to protect me and support me any longer, so I had to find a way to do it myself and thus fell back on old habits.

Kaleidoscope (Part 2)

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I want to precursor starting this off by saying that there is a certain amount of discomfort in these “Kaleidoscope” posts.   The discomfort goes beyond what one would think considering exposing wounds and vulnerability and falls within the realm of casting blame and throwing stones.    I don’t like it.

I know this “Kaleidoscope” series that I have begun are things you need to hear from me, but I can’t cast all the blame on your shoulders.  Your grief and depression was a separate entity that I view as something apart from you, even if my emotions can’t fully separate it from you.  Aside from that, I feel that the burden of guilt should rest not just with you, but with me as well, and how I handled things.

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A Lack of Support

There were times I felt that I was slipping and sliding down a rocky slope, my fingers curled and nails digging in, scraping over the rocks.   You weren’t there, too wrapped up in your own thoughts and emotions, too distracted by your own grievances to notice I was struggling.

This, in itself, wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t come, over time, to depend on you noticing.  I had come to depend upon your observations, your obsessive watchfulness and attention to detail.  I had come to depend on how well  you knew me, and upon your quick step and strong reach that would come down over the edge of the cliff and grab hold before I could slide too far down the rocky face.

Without you there to do this, I had to find another way and I fell back upon the old tried and true habits of closing myself off whenever I struggled so that no one would be able to see I was struggling.

Closing myself off after having discovered the freedom your protection granted me created an ache of loss, and the harsh burn of resentment to fester inside.

Kaleidoscope (Part 1)

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I’m going to ask you now, to yet again…tell me about the anger. Not just acknowledging it, but explaining it. Listing the reasons and expanding on them…digging into them. I need to know the depth of this anger, I need to know why it’s still there, why I can’t reach it to make it better. – Gideon 26Aug2017

My anger and pain are blended like a kaleidoscope, filled with a myriad of colors and shapes that run into each other like spilled paint.  Each needle-like jab of pain endured created a singeing sear of anger.  In some cases, the anger never burned itself out.  In other cases, the pain is still there, still feeding the burn.  It makes me wonder if it’s the anger that’s the issue… or the pain.  Maybe its both.

Regardless, the colors in my kaleidoscope include the following:

  • Abandonment
  • Taking Up the Reigns
  • Lack of Support
  • Baby the Babysitter
  • Drown and Drop Neglect
  • Reciprocation Issues
  • The Almighty Cling

Everything feels like too big of a project right now.   Starting a list, just on its own, felt like a monumental struggle.  So, I am going to expand on each of these a little at a time, chipping away at each and adding more if additional points come up along the way.

I Do Feel Anger

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Angry Flames
Although a lot of my emotions are buffered right now, (tucked beneath a layer of quieting cotton, out of view and muffled), the anger is there.  I can’t feel it’s full strength, and yet there’s no denying its presence.

It eats away like a low grade acid within my gut, a mere whisper of an uncomfortable burning, always present and yet easy to ignore.  I know you don’t want me to ignore it, but at the same time, I don’t know how to dig it out and let it burn freely.  I acknowledge that it’s there. Im trying to get in touch with it.  I know you need it to resolve the hurt and bridge the gap.

I’m trying.