Why can’t I stop?

April 3, 2007 at 6:47 pm (adoption, first mother)

“Feeling undone
What have I become?
When I turned my back on you I turned my back on myself and became this machine”

I have spent the last year and a half pretending. Everything about me is fake. I have turned into a machine. I do what I have to do. I act the way I have to act. I look the way I have to look.

I do this even when I don’t mean to. It has become instinct.  A bad habit I can’t break. I tell myself I won’t do it anymore and then realize I still am days later. This blog is one of the few places I am actually me.

Part of the problem is that I still here the agency’s words echoing in my head. I am not good enough. I am not stable. I am not successful enough. I am not mature enough. I am flawed in a way that makes me less than everyone else. I ruin people’s lives. My very existence hurts the people I love. I am not enough.

I must protect people from the disaster that is me. I do that by hiding behind masks and pretending to be something I am not. I keep them safe by denying me. As long as I pretend to be what everyone said I should be everyone I love will not be hurt. And I will be the one that saved them.

I know this logic is flawed. I know I can’t really be that bad. Yet I can’t seem to stop thinking this way and behaving this way.

Now here is my big problem for today. Something happened with S. (my lovely boyfriend) I am really hurt by it. I think about it all day while he is working. I think about it at night when he is peacefully sleeping. I know I need to talk to him about it. He can’t read my mind. I don’t think he has a clue I am even upset.

The talk will be hard. He will probably get upset about it. It will lead into other conversations I really hate having. Most likely I will cry. But I know it has to be done.

Every night I have planned to bring it up when he gets home. Every night I instantly switch into the good little actor I have become. I push it all down somewhere deep inside me. I put on my fake smile and pretend everything is ok. I am too damn scared to open my mouth.

I don’t know why I am so scared. S has never given me a reason to be scared. I fear that he will pack up and leave if he sees that I am not perfect. He has never left in the past. I am sure he knows I am far from perfect. He has been there when I broke down before. He has seen me cry an ocean of tears. He didn’t leave then. Why do I think he will leave now?

Maybe it is because I know I can not handle any more loss. The loss of him would undo me. He is the only one that knows what happened. He is the last piece of her I have left in my daily life. He is the only one that can make me laugh no matter how bad I feel.

The fear of losing him holds me captive. It paralyzes me. He would be appalled if he knew I felt this way. He would never want me to feel that I had to pretend with him. I know its not what he would want yet I keep doing it.

I need to find a way to stop this. I know I have to stop. If I don’t resentment will build and I will isolate myself more than I already have.

Tonight I will try again. I will try to be brave and just tell him that I am hurt. It will be hard. I will be scared. I will probably cry.But maybe when its over I will feel better.

Cross your fingers for me. Hopefully tonight I will have courage.

 

Advertisement