Why am I alone and why does being alone cause me pain? Is there anything that will enlighten me about this path of aloneness?
It reminds me of my childhood, quiet, in my own imagination and alone. My parents couldn't sustain me...their demons were bigger. And I was always left to my own devices. Play make believe. Read a book. Watch tv. Daydream. Friends were there but in the periphery. They added sometimes to my life but never fulfilled it. So i guess I like being alone sometimes, but not lonely. Lonely is when you want someone to share something with, a joke, a movie, a stroll, the breeze, music...and there is nothing beside you but you. I am naturally introverted so I need to be myself at time to recharge but not having anyone sometimes to have a cup of coffee or meal with is hurtful. That was the need that J filled a lot when she was here.
I am the only person though in my family that is fine being alone for extended periods of time. I didn't used to be before meds though. They helped calm my mind a lot so I could breathe quietly. But still I am the only one who can sustain myself. There is some enlightenment in that..that I want something deeper..darker..brighter...something they don't even exists or looks like.

Taking responsibility for the thinking and choices about how you feel about yourself that keeps me stuck and in a victim....
I realized that yesterday when I visited a friend who's been going through a really really tough time. I sat there listening to it as she went on and on about a situation that has been going on for years. And I felt sympathetic yes but I so wanted her to say "I did this. I created this." She played victim and martyr when the truth was in her face for so long. And she got defensive when I brought it up. Just like I do when the truth about my numbness and taking responsibility for my actions is in my face. I am like my mother, end of. I make money yes and live on my own means, something that will always separate me from my mother, but inherently, emotionally, I am like her. Waiting for the other, the outside to change the inside.

I have even gone numb to my pain...it was more apparent when I was working. Because the dead end job felt like my soul was oozing out of my pores...leaking my essence on the floor. But I was making money. But when I am home, in comfort, I have all kinds of numbing agents. TV, books, reading online, news, stores, etc etc...all designed to take me out versus in. The fear wins there and the scariest part I don't even see it happening because I am numb while it takes over quietly...insidiously..

This weekend was so challenging for me because my biggest fight in life is my own needs versus my family's. Their crazy becoming my crazy and so forth. I have fought it my whole life but honestly it's been a losing battle because I don't think I ever meant my "no". In the session, when you said "whatever you're doing they're not buying it" I had no conviction. No strength. No follow through. No action. I just whined. And on that Friday, I could either stay and whine and wait for my dad to come home and "fix it" or I could just grow a pair and walk out. With their hands reaching for me and doubt in my heart I just left. And then I left again on a flight. This is my biggest fight. I think. The one that will define me. Their and pain and the pity I feel for them vs my own needs, pain and life. That's the one thing I have never done. Feel for them but not bend. Because when I see my mother in the wheelchair, my sister...in her crazy state...my overworked father, my heart hurts and bleeds. And then I'm so caught up in that that I can't see my own future, my need to detangle myself from that. That it is OK to not be tangled in that. Their crazy doesn't have to be MY crazy. Even if my mother would love it if I were a fixer like my dad. "fix your sister. save her. find her. help her." save save save save....fix help save fix help bleed save love hurt bleed hit out need bleed out away save hit hurt away save hurt. This hurricane will never end. I just have to do something that it really really really going to hurt me at first and that is not want to save. And concentrate that I have a life worth saving too. If they go down, I don't go with them. This right here is something I have never ever wanted to see. And it hurts and terrifies me to even think it. That I am still WORTH it even if they can't be saved. It is still ok to be happy even if they aren't. Why does that feel like bile in my mouth?

Yesterday I took a walk and found myself in front of Central Park. It was a rainy day with dusk setting in and what it created was a magic hour. The mist settled through the trees, over the frozen lake, mingling with the white snow and golden lamp posts...and it took my breath away. I stood enraptured, walking further into the park to disappear into the mist. Claimed by its haunting beauty. I felt tears come down my face the melancholy beauty it touched me so. I could not take enough pictures. I felt all at once alive, in pain, a spark of something, energy and everything wrapped in that moment. It was pure me. This moment of beauty was all mine. Like a living embodiment of a poem I conjured up. And nothing could take it away, taint it, convince me otherwise. That decisive feeling was so rare.
It spoke so much to the dark poet in me, the edgar allen poe, the robert frost and keats in me.
I remember, years ago, when I had made a vision board and I had a lot of black and white pictures on there, and there was one of a couple walking down a misty stretch of beach. I remember saying, "I want someone I can be sad with." I did end up getting that, while the relationship lasted he never judged or explained away or grew tired of my tears and melancholy heart. That was the one beautiful thing about our relationship. Until it ended, I felt safe reveling in the dark heart of mine. He would drive me by the beach when it was raining so I could lean back, with my arm out the window listening to a moody song. That was my moment.
I wish I had more of these decisive moments in my life where I didn't have to think, I just felt the rightness of the moment, the feelings that went with it and could just be in it, knowing it was true. Because it was me. Just me.
There was no age, I was the sum of all the moments of my life where I felt this present and alive. And enthralled with the beauty and magic of the moment.

On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday with some friends. It was a smaller affair than years past but I felt it more personal. Two of my friends asked me what my wish was for this year. One friend, G, said "I'm a genie, what would you wish for if you could have anything?" I stared blankly at her. I said "I would like to get a clearer focus on what my career is supposed to be." "Too vague" both my friends said. "Try again. Be specific. Don't censor it or think like you can't have it." "Uhhh..." "Is it money?" one asked, "uhh...I'd like to have purpose too." "What does purpose mean to you?" "Where I feel like I make a difference." "Vague." This went on an on and at the end of it, I just said "I'm too fuzzy about the specifics." And they were like that's why your life is fuzzy. My friend G said "You know my goal is to make $800,000?" I looked at her like what?! She said "The number is big yes but I own it. I want it. I will get there. And if not I'll be in the vicinity." Her conviction and focus were...just something I wish I had. 

So your words ring very true here: "you are having great fear and resistance and collapsing.  Giving your power away.  Believing a story about yourself that you are not good enough.  Feeling the pain of your own rejection." Yes, yes and yes. In a purely fantastical world, I can't even reach very high.

The business woman, the wounded woman, the longing woman, the writer woman. You can't have their feelings leak into each other.  

Write ONE THING you need to do for each part of yourself. 

The business woman needs to believe in something she wants. She need to find out what she wants and pursue, pursue. 

The wounded woman needs to have compassion for the journey it's taken to get here. 

The longing woman needs to not give her power away. How this exactly works I'm not sure. But she cannot let the feelings of being small and insignificant stop her from believing she can have what she wants.

The writer woman needs to write daily. End of story. Journal, whatever.  

Where are you in your mother's words in how she takes away your Desire? 

There was a song in college I found that completely held the power of my mother's words in its lyrics. The sense of being dragged down and then just letting it happen. So I am fighting to untangle myself from this belief...

She makes me wanna die

Follow where Mary goes

Cherish the things she knows

Look to the sun

See me in psychic pollution

Walking on the moon

And how could you dare?

Who do you think you are?

You're insignificant

A small piece, an ism

No more, no less

How do you give it to her? 

 In my thoughts that I am small, have something to prove, born with original sin and trying to show otherwise. When she loves me, I'm her star. When she wants to hurt me, I'm nobody and everyone is better. 

So I do special/worthless with myself. 

How is your power, heart and vagina connected to your desire?

Well, it all feels disconnected and stagnant. My power feels dissolved, heart feels closed and vagina feels neglected, alone and afraid at the same time. So desire, the burn, the want for anything doesn't really feel present. There's a minor ache in my chest, where the embers of some kind of desire still burn...but like that conversation I had with my friends, it doesn't feel convincing, powerful and alive.

What is your orgasm attached to?  

It used to be pain...like a voyeur watching a girl's needs and desires thrown to the side while she acts as a holder for all of the man's needs. But lately...lately..my body has started staying in my own body or it switches back and forth and wants the passion, the pleasure of actually being with someone. Me being aware of my own desire and pleasure. This is a first for me...

 

How does your desire, or lack of desire affect your creativity, intimacy and spirituality 

 My lack of desire has made everything stagnant, like a river caught, where all the gunk is starting to rot and decay and the water is murky and unfresh. No life-giving purity. It feels like there is no flow, or spark going through me to energize me to action. So the lack of desire is like my mother just waiting for someone to hand her the world and save her. 

Make a list describing your mother sexually, sensually, creatively… 

My mother is the most asexual person ever. She never talks about sex, thinks I'm a virgin, used to look at people who had sex as gross and never really loved or acted passionately with my dad. She's like a 13 year old that way. I remember once I saw my mother stop after pulling a freshly laundered towel out of the dryer and just press it to her face and body and I just stood, kind of shocked. She said "ahhh so warm." It was the one of the few times I have seen her do anything sensory oriented. Enjoyed in the pleasure of anything. Creatively, she can paint. But doesn't. She like art but does nothing with it. She used to be more creative in Oman, but after we came here she stopped everything. I have never seen her create anything really, other than cooking. Even thinking creatively out of a problem is rare... as she mostly either says something superstitious or "just give it up" or "I told you so."

 She never worked a job or knew what school was like here...she never had to know. How to work hard, then even harder, thinking creatively as you go to figure life out. She left everything to my dad. The only fire I ever saw from her was her rage at the world or my dad. 

So there was a ghost where my mother was concerned sexually, sensually, creatively…

I didn't feel like writing for a few days...it went to "I have to write. Not right now. In an hour. Ok, tomorrow morning and then one day became two and then three. I had an interview on Wednesday and I think that day threw me off track or I let it throw me off track. It was for a part-time freelance role that pays me not a lot of money and for 5 months. I have had no other offers. And I think I collapsed around that. And then my process suffered. I have to say yes to the role but I don't want to. I want to go up in my career not down and so something more in keeping with my interests. In any case, it got me here. Off track, collapsed and regressing. So this is me getting back up, trying to claw my way back on track. I feel anger and fear and sadness. And tomorrow I celebrate my birthday and it's another year where I'm sitting at dinner wondering what my career is floundering and where will I be in a 3-4 months? I hate that feeling. It makes me angry and scared. And want to hit something.
I want more. I don't know what that more is. But I want it.
There's this big hole in my chest, I feel the no and I feel the want. The no says nothing great is going to happen career or love wise. The want is begging. And all of this gives my power away, gives me away.  I wait for the recruiters, email more recruiters, wait for them some more, etc. I don't know how to step off this hamster cycle. And it made me go into a numb cave for 2-3 days. My heart hurts.

Today is my birthday. My 32nd one. I both can't believe the number and and feel like I haven't lived enough. People I thought didn't care wished me happy birthday, people who I thought would be the first to wish were not.

I have had some recruiters reach out to me for job leads but no follow up after the initial email. I'm scared but I see that even in this "free" time I don't necessarily have to make myself miserable. I could take a class that would give me another skill set for my resume, and I really want to be around dogs. But shelters don't let you just sit and pet dogs, they want you just get trained and pick up their poop/pee and walk them. So I'm trying to see if I can call a shelter and maybe they'll me "hang out" with a dog for like 30 mins or an hour and ill walk/feed it also. But the thing is, I can do some things in the meantime that fill my life. I saw this movie "The intern" where this 70-year old widowed guy who's retired tries to be positive and fills his day with many things. He does tai chi, learns to cook, knit, reads, wakes up everyday and goes to the coffee shop and reads the paper but still wants to do more so one day at the grocery store he sees a flier for "Senior Intern program" for a start up. And so he applies, gets selected and ends up beings designated as the owner's intern. His can-do attitude makes him her right-hand man. He meets a woman at the company and finds love again. He does all of it. All because he didn't despair and just give up. I want to be like that.

My mother texts me random things that give me anxiety and so I told her "You cannot text me random things like this with no explanation. Not ever. It doesn't help me." She said ok. I felt fear and some weird guilt in saying that to her but I had to. And she seemed ok with it.
I keep to my commitment of working out and journaling and coming in everyday.

Today I am scared of everything. I sit, and sit and sit and my grief and anger is wrapped like vines around the fear that is every present. Fear around the fact that I haven't worked in weeks, that I don't really have any major leads on any new jobs and that I am living off savings. Then there is the judgement of what my days home consist of. Waking up, making a meal, TV comes on, I read/email/putter around for a bit then go work out, then make dinner, do more TV/reading/emails and then go to bed. Ever so often I'll go out for drinks/meal with a friend or out to window shop or look for ideas to organize my room. And of course my routine of coming in and journaling. This has been my schedule for the last 2 weeks. I'm scared it's not going to change. I'm scared of what's going to come next. I'm scared that I miss hearing the sound of a guy's voice on the phone--that one makes me very sad, actually. I hurt in my chest about that one. The other day I thought I saw Sam while I was out and I swear I felt like my heart skipped a beat. All that fear and emotion wrapped around someone who doesn't even mean anything anymore. I had a dream last night that I was in Coral Springs and I saw John from a distance. And because of this, the grief that I'm working on to feel--except for the not hearing a guys' voice part-- doesn't really come up or I can't tap into it.

It's my birthday in 3 days and I am struggling to not collapse in that. I don't really feel like celebrating it, but I am next weekend with a handful of friends. I just hurt...and I feel like my world is very small and getting smaller.  it's the same routine now for the last three years. Get laid of first week of jan, do nothing for a few weeks, have a birthday where I smile for a day and act like I'm not scared of the future. I am terrified that it is happening again this year. It hurts.

YOUR SOUL did not give up.  YOUR SOUL kept fighting for her life. Can you see and feel this?  Here is where the compassion MUST emerge.  The compassion for the young child who couldn't fight her mother.  Who didn't have a father to protect you.  She grew up, split, numb and afraid of everything.  But she survived.  What is the long term choice of her survival choice?  What did she have to believe about herself in order to stay alive? What is the lie in this choice now?

How did the little girl survive?  What is her secret around her survival, the shame of how she survived?

The shame that she had no control?  What is her story around all of this?  How does she see herself, see YOU as the adult you became.

The child is making choices though.  She did not collapse in this mind control. She felt the pain and still made another choice.  

This an amazing courageous act.  Can you feel this?  

I think I am in between somewhere between recognizing,  accepting what happened and finding softness and compassion that it did. And then moving. I am on that precipice. Yes, I recognize that I fought against the bonds like Jessica did. She is STILL fighting her mind-controller and the mind control itself. I am too. I have begun to recognize the devil/angel game my mother and father played with me. 

The little girl survived by turning inward, and shut out the world because it hurt too much. She had to believe she was a soldier, stone and tough. To counter what any rape victim believes, that she should have won but she was powerless against the torrent. The OCD to pretend that safety existed in those small routines. And then the shame that the trauma has left a big hole, a wound in her center. Everything revolves around this wound. She sees herself as her mother saw her. And she is struggling against the past, trying not to let it destroy the present and future but the more she struggles against the bond, the stickier they become and then it all jumbles together. The grief turns to rage and then she collapses, spent. But she still struggles in her collapse. Her knees hurt, but she gets up everyday still. For that I give her credit. In this way she is unlike her mother. That is courage, yes. I'm still pushing, even with the pain. Searching.

Jessica Jones is still on my mind so I'm going to delve into more of why it made an impact on me...
Two things mostly--one on how Jessica copes and two what the mind-controller, Killgrave, is like.
Jessica, is cold, bitter and is so tough on the outside, it's like she's perpetually snarling. She has a uniform of an oversized black leather jacket and jeans. Her job is to play detective, which she does in a ramshackle, dingy and isolated apartment, while drinking all day long. But what she is really doing is searching for Killgrave so she can wipe him out, thus saving others from his evilness. She hopes that will truly free her then.

Killgrave believes he "loves" Jessica. He believes everything he ever does is out of love. He came from scientist parents who he says hurt him with their testing on him and so he lashes out. He says actually waiting for people to do what he wants is tiresome and so, why not just use his talent and speed it up? Who cares about consent? When he knows he is "right" in what he is asking of them? He "knows better than they do". That even though Jessica struggles against her bonds relentlessly, he "knows" she loves him and "just doesn't see it yet." He plays his charms like a weapon and destroys her ability to trust what she truly wants. So she is left in an abyss. "Did I really love him?" she wonders. "Maybe I wanted it?" Like every rape victim, she doubts everything she has ever believed about the world and herself.

Killgrave uses this to get her right where he wants. Pliable, reliant, his. Deaf, dumb, blind and essentially dead. She only exists when he tells her to.

My mother is so so like Killgrave that I want to vomit. And every fantasy I have ever had of playing the tough chick with her red lips, all black everything, moto boots and motorcycles is Jessica.

People might not take this show seriously enough and people will see Jessica's sarcasm and offhand, aloof way of being and use this show as something to pass the time. Sometime with just enough grit to hold their attention for a few hours and then summarily dismiss it later. But it's so dark and dangerous in its insidiousness and they don't even know it. They're nothing light or throwaway about it.

And the thing is no one believes you. "You're so tough and strong and there are no physical wounds so you're all good." That is the hole everyone falls into. That unless they were in my body and mind, they feel none of the darkness and look at the surface. And then no one sees anything.

I watched this show, Jessica Jones, who is a female superhero who got kidnapped essentially by a mind-controller who could make anyone do anything, making whatever he said a compulsion they had to follow, to their own deaths if need be because. he. said. so. Grind their own hand into a blender, sleep with him, jump off a building, turn on someone,  stop blinking for an hour, just because he asked. And the kicker? The mind believing that it was it of its own choosing to do so. Even though there is a second piece screaming no, no, no, no, no, it doesn't matter. The compulsion is too great, the need to great, the idea of not doing it not even possible. To stop and say no, not eve an option. The mind believing it the whole time but unable to resist.
So he took this woman with superhero capabilities and turned her against herself. She had superhero physical strength, could leap from buildings, etc. And turned her into this mannequin essentially who did his bidding. Dressed her up the way he wanted, made her talk, smile, laugh, sit, stand, eat the way he wanted. Fuck the way he wanted.
And after the spell is over, if you're not dead, you don't know how you got where you were, why you were there and what the consequences were. And no one believes that you didn't want to, that you would never have been capable of that, it was another person who looked, talked, walked like you but it wasn't you. No one sees the truth. Because how could they? The whole thing was taking place in your mind, your body. And you were standing over your own hand dismembered, or someone else's face slashed and what truth could hold against that?
So this superhero now, after the spell is broken, is forever running. She drinks all day, locks herself in a hole of an apartment and is bitter, angry and yet so so vulnerable. Her strengths 'failed' her and she was broken.  Forever running from this man with so much power over her.

Many of my friends did not like the series, saying it wasn't done well, executed well, but I couldn't stop defending it. And it hurt every time someone said it wasn't "great" or whatever. I kept thinking "but it's not about the execution. It's about something that no one ever talks about and that's more important." I would almost get angry, feel like my skin was raw. The idea of this entire series hit too close to home, and I didn't realize that until yesterday when I saw my hand googling my cousin when I knew it would bring hurt and I couldn't stop, wanted the pain even because I was trained to do as it wanted. To bring more pain. To slash myself down. And I could only watch. My brain screaming no, My hand not listening.

The separation of myself. The not being in my body. The way she lives, the way I live. The strengths no longer seen as strengths. My mother's voice acting as a voice of god.
How could I not feel akin to this Jessica Jones?

 Today was really hard coming in. I kept going to how to rearrange my room so it would be less messy to my birthday plans and then finally to ever-growing worry--my job situation, or lack thereof. This happens to me every year at January 7-8, I'm out of a job and have to scramble, scramble. I'm tired of it and deathly afraid right now. So all the fear just keeps getting stuck, and when I DO tap into it, just tears come up, then get stuck in my chest.

5. Can you pare away the story attached to your wound and acknowledge (feel) the raw

emotion it covers?

I know the story inside and out by now. If I pare away at my mother, her bitterness, her fear that she controlled us with, her pain, her anger at the world, I'm left with my own fear, anger, sadness and stunning hopelessness. John's abandonment. This isolation and loneliness. These are the pervading feelings of my youth and I've been running but ironically living controlled by them all my life. The raw anger at having to be a pawn of my mother's feelings. Having my life and mind be controlled by a mad woman's desperate whims. The sadness that it happened and has now affected me so deeply that I am paralyzed. The fear that nothing will change and I'll forever be stuck here, controlled by what she taught me and what I've seen in my life. Feeling these, acknowledging these, is new to me as I always feel guilty having emotions and giving them weight around my parents. Because then I collapse into victim mode and like I wrote yesterday, I want these emotions to give me courage and strength to move and grow. But I have to feel them first. And give them a space. I want to stop running from them because all that gives me is OCD. I want to feel my worth, that I HAVE worth, no matter what is happening outside.

Prompt:  Anger.  Write about how your anger turns against you, against others.  How can you transform your anger into courage and strength?

 My anger is always there lurking inward, "why can't you find your purpose in life yet" "why can't you find a relationship yet" "why can't you get up to speed in life yet" all these judgements and blame and vitriol at myself and then it spews forth at others. Usually in my head in terms of jealousy and not-so-nice thoughts. My anger makes others greater and me lesser, something my mother taught me to do whenever she felt threatened. And if she wanted to flip the script she would say "oh they don't know how much you've been through" so the anger turned into victim for power. For once I want my anger to give my life and power without special/worthless and momentum to change my life, just my life, not dependent on anyone else. I want it to give me passion, fire and warmth to affect change, to burn away some of the fear, burn through it so I have room for other things. I want it to give me legs to move forward. So in a way yes, I can have compassion that I did/do go through rough times and abuse which have paralyzed me. But that does not make me lesser or better.And it doesn't make me a victim. The how I'm turning it into courage is sitting with myself everyday and staying in with my feelings--or trying to, committing to this process where I was always 40% before and having faith that in all this darkness my anger is a light and can give me strength. To find my true purpose. I am blind right now. But I want to have faith that it's there. The alchemy of anger into a strength. So I can truly be happy for others, without feeling sorry for myself. To truly be there for others without feeling happy at their misery.

The discomfort of commitment...
The shadows and myths of my life...

This is how I have to show up for myself. By doing what makes me uncomfortable, even if I don't understand it, or see any changes, or see any light, I just have to sit and be uncomfortable, raw with it and write with it. I keep wanting out of it, distracting myself with TV, someone else, social media, other peoples' lives--just showing me how much I DO NOT WANT TO STAY IN AND HERE. So that's what I'm doing, staying in the discomfort of my commitment. And writing even when there are no new words, just to stay here with me so I can untangle myself from my mother and the untruths she taught me. So I can individuate and have my own beliefs and see the world through different eyes and not have her thoughts be my thoughts. Her fears and judgements be mine. Her bitterness and lack, mine. The belief at the end of the day that I am not enough. On the train. In the street. At work. With my friends out at a bar. Anywhere, everywhere.
She has taught me that the default in any situation is that I don't belong, am doing something wrong and that everyone is better and I should get something from them. Like at the bar the other night, when I was left at the bar alone with no one to talk to and wanted to run out, and turned to my phone to keep busy, I was judging myself to china. "Leave now. It wasn't worth coming out. This is why you don't come out. Just go." But everyone else already knew each other, so how is that on me? Why should I blame myself if I don't know anyone so can't just say hey! and start a convo. And then when Susie came back and introduced me to people, it was fine. Until that guy started his pretentious bullshit and I got angry. And then afraid like a fish out of water. Less, more, less, more, less, more. Like a fucking roller coaster. He was a tool, and yet I still placed him on some pedestal. He actually had the gall to say to me when I told him I wasn't born here, "Oh you don't have an accent and sound like an idiot." And yet even after all this pompous assholery, I STILL made it seem like him liking me (if what Susie said was correct) this big event, like I had been awarded something I didn't deserve. I mean the guy had actually said "yawn"when I said I was born in Bombay, just because it was like "any other Western metropolis" what sort of horseshit is that? And yet, again, I placed him and his blonde, white ex in some "other" category. I kept looking in the mirror behind him to look at us talking and what it looked like.
I hate this yo-yo-ing and self-doubt and feeling like a pauper who gets some crumbs and feels worthy. I hate it. I want to feel like I'm worth something and someone ELSE is lucky to have my attention and hold a convo with me. Most of all I want to not feel like an outsider trying to belong desperately because that's the only way I'll feel love. From others, from my parents, from myself. I want to feel enough, whatever I'm doing. I want to stop giving so much power to others, like my mother had me do.