In the fall of 2005 I bought a pair of incredibly comfortable slip-on shoes to wear inside the house. I loved them and wanted to wear them everywhere, but then they couldn’t be my indoor shoes anymore. I solved that problem by buying a second identical pair. I decorated them so that I could tell the two pairs of shoes apart.

I colored in the patterns with colored Sharpies. I have a Sharpie fetish.

I decorated these during a long, long night on December 13, 2005. All of my art…poetry, knitting, freeform, everything… is a form of spell-casting, mostly to make new realities for myself. I’ve found tremendous healing on that path. I painted my shoes and wrote to my friends through that dark night.

12/13/2005 10:42 pm - Needing to move my body

So, I think I figured out a piece of this.

I think that there are things that I need to do that my child self couldn’t do…I mean that she still needs to do them, but she doesn’t have a physical body anymore and can’t, so I have to do them for her, do them in her stead.

One of the things that she really needed to be able to do was to move. She got stuck listening to angry, screaming, drunken tirades for hours and hours. She wasn’t allowed to go to sleep when she was tired and had to stay up and take care of stuff. And she was stuck a lot..stuck watching, stuck enduring, and she couldn’t move…couldn’t run away, couldn’t go to safety, couldn’t go to the bathroom or sit down. Couldn’t move.

But I can. I can walk and walk and walk and I think it might take a lot of walking to get all the tension out of the muscles she had to hold still for so long. It’s not that I need to run away or escape, I just need to engage in the motion.

Dunno if it makes sense or not, but it feels right to me.

12/13/2005 11:09 pm - Oh shit

So, I’m realizing that this stuff that I don’t remember…well, obviously I do remember it somehow, somewhere.

She remembers.

And I can feel it in my body, that’s how I know she remembers, because I can feel what she remembers, even though I don’t have any conscious memories.

Think it’s gonna be a long night, maybe.

I’m okay, not upset, not terrified, not shut down, but it’s intense and I’m kinda scared. Making tea, may write some poetry, may call SASS if I need to cause it’s really too late to call people, I think.

12/13/2005 11:28 pm - This sucks

I just realized, that even with all the warm and loving responses that I received in response to my request for support…and I’ve been working hard to take advantage of them…making phone calls even though that’s very hard for me and calling the same people back a second or third time and trying really hard to trust that I’m not being a burden…

But I just realized that I’m sitting here, pre-managing and coping by myself again.

It’s late enough that I don’t want to call anyone, not even the crisis support line at the sexual assault center, because I don’t want to bother anyone.

I’m okay mostly, just not very comfortable being alone with the stuff that I’m thinking right now.

<sigh> This is a sadly long road.

I realized tonight that all the stuff that I don’t remember, that my child self remembers and I know she remembers, because I can feel what she remembers in my body and it’s damned uncomfortable. Especially today, for some reason.

Not sure what I expect this email to accomplish, I just wanted to say this stuff out loud, or as close to out loud as I can get at the moment.

12/14/2005 12:14 am - Choking

I feel like I’m choking all the time now.

I’d like to think it’s because I’ve been sick and it’s certainly true that all the gunk running down my throat isn’t helping.

Inhaler does nothing and I don’t think it has anything to do with the fucking asthma.

The choking is much, much worse than it’s been in many years.

12/14/2005 12:31 am - drixoral

Just took drixoral cause I’m so tired of the gunk running down my throat and I hate taking it this late because it’ll last so long into tomorrow.

I didn’t take it earlier, though, cause I knew it would make me sleepy and I’m afraid to sleep.

Feel better when I can stay awake and keep watching.

Right now I have a moment where I can actually say this, so I’m going to. I love you and thank you for being here to hear this.

I posted about some of this to ccpdx and a woman wrote back and at the end of her message she said:

Good night, sweet little Barbara. None of it was your fault. And I grant you permission to feel the full range of your feelings, even if they are angry and sad and scared. You are not really alone…May you sleep well tonight.

And I felt angry…I wanted to shout, goddamn it, no one is supposed to talk to her!!!!! Even as I was crying.

Pretty sure all of this was actually triggered by what he said last night…about not being in love followed right up by all those nice things he likes about me.

Two very hardest things for me to hear:

I don’t love you
I like you

I don’t know which one is worse, I just know they both scare the crap out of me and one I believe too easily and the other I don’t believe at all in some ways.

12/14/2005 12:39 am - food

The choking makes me want to not eat.

At all.

Ever again.

I also feel like I’m going to throw up or like I’m trying not to throw up.

I keep coughing, but whatever it is still trapped, caught, lodged there in my chest.

I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to eat.

12/14/2005 12:45 am - Not that bad

I just wanted to let you know, in case it looks very bad, that I’m actually doing pretty well.

This is hard, hard like hiking up mountains or chopping wood, but I’m not in pain and I’m not distressed.

Just processing…and experiencing a lot of physical stuff in my body. Shaking a lot.

Tons of tension in my muscles…that’s been there all day.

12/14//2005 12:56 am - re: This sucks

Thank you for your words. I know that I’m fundamentally sound and okay, or at least part of me does. I’m not upset or distressed tonight, I’m just processing a lot and it’s uncomfortable. Much of it is physical. I keep shaking.

> Have you ever tried the birth art exercise from Birthing From Within?
> It occurs to me that some of them might be helpful even though you are
> not planning on giving birth any time soon…especially the ones about
> Tigers and processing fear and loss of control.

I haven’t, but I will look into this. I am giving birth, in labor anyway, giving birth to myself, I think.

> Good night, sweet little Barbara. None of it was your fault.
> And I grant you permission to feel the full range of your feelings,
> even if they are angry and sad and scared. You are not really
> alone…May you sleep well tonight.

I’m going to share my initial response to this with you and I hope you will appreciate it as the gift it is.

I wanted to shout, really loud, “goddamn it!! No one is supposed to talk to her!!!” And I cried.

She liked hearing it, but I didn’t like it that she heard you.

I think she probably needs to hear that kind of thing a lot, so I’m going to have to figure out a way to get comfortable with it. Thank you.

12/14/2005 1:31 am - re: This sucks

I’m doing pretty well actually. Not sleeping there. Feel better if I’m awake and keeping watch. Kinda afraid to sleep.

A few weeks ago I bought a pair of shoes to wear inside the house…we don’t wear shoes inside. Anyway, I fell in love with them and I keep wanting to wear them outside. So today, I bought a second pair that are identical so that I could have one pair to wear at home and one pair of street shoes.

I was worried about not being able to tell them apart, so I’ve been decorating one pair, drawing and coloring them with my sharpies.

I have lots of small strategies for taking care of myself.

12/14/2005 1:45 am - Finished my shoes

My brain is full.

There’s poetry, but it’s not ready to come out, so I think I’m going to go to bed.

Starting to feel really sleepy.

Back to listening to Peter again. Don’t know why this song is so satisfying to me.

Talk to you tomorrow.