Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Getting beneath the surface

It's pretty fair to say that our lives have been pretty chicken-centric as of late. So, it makes sense that when trying to put my battle with ppa into words, the images coming to mind have to do with eggs.

Broken, cracked shells. An egg shell doesn't shatter. The shell breaks and cracks, while being held together by a thin, transparent membrane. My outer shell is cracking, too. My ability to hide my reality was forced upon me my.whole life. I was the only one not surprised by my parents' divorce. Because they hid the problems and acted happy around everyone else. I was told without words that I was expected to help protect the facade of the perfect nuclear family.

So I still hide problems. I feel like showing imperfections is weakness and makes me an imposition on others. I try to act like things are great.

Great. What a lie that word is! How many times do we say that we're doing great when the truth couldn't he further from that? I know I'm not the only one who is like this.

And now, with this facade, this shell, cracking away there's exposed vulnerability. This is new to me. Me, the girl who finished small talk while paying the hairdresser seconds after finding out her Pa had died. Who doesn't break in front of anyone. Who's pulled together, at least marginally so.

This affects me in ways I'm not used to. Which brings us to the inside of the egg. Two words that fit an egg and my nerves: fried and scrambled.

I am constantly on the verge of tears. Stress of any kind renders me incapable of handling even daily life. And I can't take excess noise. The baby crying, the girls playing loudly, dogs barking, tv. All can cause me to mentally shut down. Because I can't cope if there's noise around me. I start to get why they put people in padded rooms. Because one sounds really nice about now.

Most of my days are spent outside with the kids (where noise doesn't bother me as much) or in the house sending them to play in a different room. This doesn't make me proud, and I feel guilty for constantly shooing them away. I keep saying soon I'll feel better. But when is soon?

No comments:

Post a Comment