Character Defect #53

    Control....This seems to be my biggest character defect, or at least the one I am acting out on the most lately. When I feel like I am spiraling out of control and I am feeling unmanageable I try to control  everyone else. I have fucked up my life so let me manage yours.

    I live with a man and lately I notice I have been treating him like one of my children. I am constantly feeling the need to guide, to tell him what to do or how to do it and give constructive criticism. I mean well but as my elders have told me "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." It doesn't matter why I do it. I need to stop doing it. It is causing pain in my life, to myself and others. When I am trying to control someone I am lacking the respect of allowing them to make their own decisions.

    My boyfriend told me today that I am not happy unless I get my way. He says that I have to run the show. I recognized a grain of truth in that. Tonight I found out that I am not getting my daughters in the morning like I expected. Not getting them until tomorrow afternoon throws off my whole schedule with my other children. It left me feeling very out of control. Why can't people just do what I say, when I say it and how I say it and the world would be a better place.

This Christmas Holiday

I was on Facebook today and my sister posted that she couldn't wait for tomorrow night to have a homemade spaghetti dinner with her family and parents. I was so profoundly sad when I read that. I got choked up and realized what I have thrown away.

  My parents adopted me when I was ten years old  and I was so angry and resentful that I wouldn't let them get close to me. I reminded my adopted mother at ever turn that she was not my mother. I was so angry and disrespectful. I was a liar, a thief, violent, a manipulator and on several occassions she told me that I made her life a living hell. What I wanted her to realize was that I was in a living hell since the day my birthmother threw me away like yesterday's trash.

   I didn't know how to get past the fear and the anger and didn't know how to put the past behind me and open myself up to the gift of family that God gave me. When I turned 18 I reunited with my birthmother and the dirty and underhanded way that I did it hurt my adopted mother and it was like a slap in the face to her. I couldn't undo all of the hurt I caused.

   By the time I had children and realized the gift I threw away, it was too late. I still have a relationship with my adopted father,but don't have a relationship with my mom or sister. It is beyond my power to rebuild that relationship. I am envious of the relationship my mom and sister have. She is adopted as well and she never held on to the idea of her birthmother so she was much more accepting. I am jealous of that ability and of their relationship.

   I would give anything to have a positive relationship with them. I miss them and love them. I have had to find some acceptance that these relationships are not something I will ever have. I wish I had shown them love and gratitude when I had the chance. I don't often understand why God gave me the gift of that family, but not the coping skills or healing for me to accept them and appreciate them.

Is Obama a clone?

 President Barack Obama looks amazingly like (Pharoah) Akhenaten the father of monotheism. Sources in my home (the crazy live in) swears that he has it on good authority that Obama and his whole family are clones. Martial Law is about to go into effect and we are all going to be moved to prison camps. Unreliable sources also report that the Illuminati is taking over the world.

This is the craziness in my house that is my reality. I try to remember that newcomers tend to be crazy and they will grow if they continue to work a program. I try to humor him and have even agreed to the "The end of the world is coming" rubbermaid container we have hidden in the closet with nonparishable food...just in case. Everything is a conspiracy with him and it's getting hard to live with.

The Eleventh Step says that we learn to allow other  people to be where they are without having to pass judgement. I am NOT there. I mean this insanity is driving me crazy and I am not sure I want to or am able to live with it. We are complete opposites in every way. We have so little in common and I am trying to compromise and find common ground and it is wearing me out. I am not sure how to mind my own business, not be controlling and live my life.

Again, I am good at doing without things like a man or money, but seem to fall short when I have them. I am able to attain them, but not able to put in the work to keep them. I am very selfish and self-centered.

Dope didn't kill me but a Fucking chocolate chip cookie will take me out

     I had my physical this moring. I really liked my doctor. I was very impressed the the office and staff as a whole. They like for each new patient to receive a complete physical upon seeing them. It started with me weight (Uggggghhhhh!) To be fair to myself, I am subtracting 15 pounds from the tally because she weighed me with my shoes on. Then I found out that I am almost an inch taller than I thought I was all these years. When you think you are 5'1 an inch is a VERY big deal.

     I had chest x-rays and two EKGs done. Then the doctor came in and took his time with me. The nurse had already taken a thorough history and then Dr. Riley took a complete history and asked some really great questions. I gave some blood and we will go over those results next month. We set a plan for weight loss and to quit smoking. I left the office feeling confident that with this doctor, all things are possible. I was feeling so optimistic that Corey and I headed straight to the gas station where I bought a pack of cigarettes and then to Denny's where I enjoyed the Grand Slam breakfast feast.

    Really, I left the office feeling optimistic. It's like when I knew I had to quit getting hire. My thinking was let me go all out and get really fucked up one last time. I'll stop tomorrow. I do know that with my doctor's help and by working steps on these things, I will get better.

    Overall, I am healthy and have not done any lasting damage to my body over the years. This was the first part of making amends to myself for being so self-destructive.  While talking with the nurse today I realized that neither of my biological parents lived to see 60 years old. I don't have to travel the path that they traveled. I can get medical care, use pain management techniques, pray and meditate and take better care of myself. I did learn that many of my physical pains are coming from being obese.

A Buddhist Death

A Buddhist Death

“When I am dead, my dearest”

I shall need your help to ease my journey

My body you may not touch for three days

Please let them not move me

Do not cry or show strong emotion near my body

Keep vigil and chant so that my good energy may be released

For 49 days you will do rituals and prayers

By this the universe will be pleased.

During First Bardo I will not welcome the

Radiance of the Clean Light

During Second Bardo I will see my life in one night

It is during Third Bardo I will seek another birth

May that life be better than the first!

The Middle Way

                                                                     The Middle Way

I contemplate my life and all I've done

Questioning the decisions from my past

Will I observe the truth or turn and run

Praying for the courage to stand steadfast

All my moments have brought me to this place

Where I question now who I really am

Condemned by my mistakes or freed by grace

Negative force or part of love's true plan

But most is not where these answers are found

Truth manifest in who I am today

And with this I put my feet to the ground

My spirit free to walk the Middle Way

And in seeking the path I have to say

“The way is not to love, love is the way.”

The Breaking Point

The Breaking Point

His hand across her face with a sharp crack

Pale, bleeding and resigned.

      He kicks her in the ribs and she cries out
      The mental anguish far worse that the bruises
      The desperation of an addict using
                 Against her will

Dope sick without it, dying with it

      Foxhole prayers and gas station rendezvous
      Diesel fuel and body fluids
      Shame and degradation

He is a wooly mammoth lying on top of her

      The desire to lay her head on the pillow of hair on his chest
      Instead she feels thick, doughy fingers pawing at her
     There is no mistaken this for love
      A service provided for payment of some sort

     One more fix.

     Chase the high, immortality
     Feelings of power and inferiority
     Emaciated, dirty needles, blistered lips
     The smell of peppermint

Her hair sticks up like little yellow maggots

     Continual fear and constant tears
      Life in the alley
      Smells like the dumpster
      Behind Mr. Jessup’s Butcher Shop
      On a sunny, July afternoon

Desperation pulses like sexual energy in the air

      The halo of gnats dance around her head
      The sound of feral children close by


                         The smell of dust, wet cardboard
      The crinkle of cellophane and terse, barked orders
      The warehouse workers unaware
      Slow death beyond their walls
      The thick fence between the church and the alley
      Covered in grime and moss
      Won't one person reach out and save her?

He Dominates Me

He Dominates Me

 

He growls, pulling me closer

Our disagreement far from over
Oversized, callused hands on my skin
He wants me to submit
Wants my body and soul

I feel the tingle of his breath on my neck

He pushes me onto the bed
School books pushed off the bed
He never wanted me to return to school
My family’s call goes to voicemail

The flicker of the candle flames

Kissing my skin
The flick of his tongue on my slick skin
His hardness demanding submission

A fistful of my hair forces my gaze

On the intensity in his eyes
Lust and power written on his face
Hard, thick thighs pinning me down
He slowly explores my trembling body
Forcing a response

I yield to him

My second-hand negligee
Ripped, torn, discarded
He enters me with a quick thrust
Finding his rhythm
My hips rise to meet his
His seed erupts
Once again, my needs as significant
                As a geyser in an ocean

Who Am I

Who Am I?

I am a victim of rage

Neglected, bruised and broken
The sour smell of fear induced sweat
The tightness in my chest
The rolling of my stomach
The pungent smell of urine permeating the room

I am a survivor of abuse
Her boyfriend’s touch hurts
My small body stretches
Probing fingers, rough hands, grabbing…
Piercing pain, red hot

This is my worth

A lesson well taught
This is what men want, all I am good for
A belief, a lie I would let define me

I am the result of promiscuity

She does no more than bend over and lift her skirt
An ingrained belief she couldn’t say no
This is her worth
A lesson my mother also learned well

A volunteer of self-loathing, self-pity, self-obsession

Blessed numbness in the bottom of a bottle
Emotional regulation in a pill
A drug addict dominated by self-centered fear

My bottom had a trap door

Disillusion, degradation and near death
A criminal without a record
Champion of the untouchables

I am a woman but far from a lady

A Buddhist with a belief in God
A practicing Buddhist, not the bookstore variety
A student of life, forever teachable
Forever lost and trying to find myself
This is who I am

We Complement Each Other

We Complement Each other

We don't need each other or complete each other

We complement each other

I am 5 feet one and three quarters of an inch tall

He claims to be 6 feet

I am olive complected and outgoing

He is a dark caramel and reserved

He's 6'0 and thick

Not as big and hard as he once was

Much given away to age and a spinal fusion

He's large and hard enough to make a survivor of abuse feel safe

He wears crazy like a mask

It's a defense mechanism to keep people from getting too close.

What was once an asset for survival has become a defect of character.

I fight every day to hold onto sanity.

He convinced me that we should move into a three bedroom apartment in

Whispering Pines. Living in the ghetto would help us save money for a house.

Funny, two years later we have $6.00

For an ex-drug dealer/murderer, street fighter, he's shy when it comes to sex.

It must be in a bed, at bedtime with one of three positions to choose from.

I am trisexual. I will try anything once.

He's a black republican with a tattoo of a rebel flag on his right arm

and a picture of Stonewall Jackson above the bed. His hero is Glenn Beck.

I am a democrat and my heroes are Maya Angelou and Etheridge Knight

We both love the program of Narcotics Anonymous

We are both recovering addicts trying to carry a message

He likes for me to hold his hand when he isolates and I like for him to hold mine

We complement each other.

I am an addict adrift

     The "Keep Your Head Down Campaign" did not work. I was laid off a week ago. It didn't come as a big surprise. I knew it was coming and am having a hard time accepting that it wasn't personal. It is hard not to take it personally when the person who lays your off is the same person who has threatened to fire you a million times. She ended it by saying if business picks up, I will be her first choice and I am rehirable. Somehow, I think that was said to ease the blow. I went by the office today to say hello to everyone and pick up some paperwork and it felt as if I were a visitor in my own home. Have you ever felt that way? It's not a good feeling. It's only been a week and I felt like a stranger. I have a friend who works there who made me feel very welcome and that helped. The look on Hitler, I mean my boss's face today suggested that she did a happy dance when I left.

    I am trying to deal with the lay off  and haven't heard anything about my unemployment yet. It would really come in handy. The day after it happened I went to get in my car and there was a note on my windshield. The police had taken my tag for letting my insurance lapse. That afternoon I received a note in the mail to inform me that my license has been suspended because I did not pay the taxes on my car. Nice, my life is way more manageable than it was in active addiction. 

      I am also living with a man who is new to recovery. He is new to recovery and on top of everything is a conspiracy theorist. I spent the day looking online for suvival tips and things to put together in a survival kit for martial law or a civil war. It was easier to go along with it than sit there and explain to him why he is more fucked up that a football bat. The positive? We can now survive a disaster  of almost any porportion. (Assuming is only lasts 3-5 days!)

    Tomorrow morning is a doctor's appointment. One of the positives coming from being laid off is making all of these doctor's appointments before my insurance runs out at the end of the month. I have had insurance for about a year and a half, but never used it. I was too terrified to take the time off of work. (Please see previous posts) I went to the dentist and have three small cavities. I normally don't like the dentist, but I survived. By the way, Dr. Butcher is not a reassuring name for a dentist. I am so glad he uses his first name. We will see what tomorrow's visit brings. Part of working my Ninth Step and making amends to myself is taking care of myself physically. I took a walk this morning and have been praying for God to help me lose some weight this year for health reasons and to help me quit smoking.