Beyond the Mask You See

I hear this a lot lately. From friends and family members, people far away. Are you okay? Do you really want the answer? Could you do anything if I told the truth? Are you okay? I’m going to lie to you. I don’t want you to worry and I don’t want to add my stress to yours. I’m going to tell you “of course I’m okay” and force a smile and pretend for a little while that it’s the truth. Because in reality, I’m not okay. Not by a long shot. It’s like I’m dying from a thousand cuts. Finances are a mess. I’m so stressed I can’t eat. I work but I know it’s substandard, because I can’t focus. I can’t breathe properly, trying to breathe through a straw because my chest is so tight from panic. I want to run, but I can’t. I want to withdraw into myself and hide but I can’t. I’m losing at this game of life, drowning and I don’t know if I even want to surface again.

“Once I was a King” I say to the somber young man standing by my bed. I remember that much. Once I was a king. I had a queen, a lovely woman with joyful eyes and mischief in her smile. Her hair was red as a sunset, eyes dark as the fresh turned earth, fair skin dotted lightly where the sun kissed her cheeks.  Once I was a king. I had a daughter with the look of her mother but eyes like the summer sky, hair pale as straw. I remember she had a way about her, an intelligence coupled with sharp humor and a quick wit. I was a father. I was a husband. I was a king.  Once I was a king. When foreign folk sacked villages and killed my people, I went with men bearing my standard to bring peace and order to the land once again by driving out the threat.  Once I was a king. They came again, these foreign men with strange clothing and even stranger talk. They spoke of things not of my land. They didn’t belong. I went yet again to drive them out.  My wife. She cauti...

Hi. I’m here again. Sliding down into the black hole, walls too smooth to grasp. Why? Because no matter what I do, I feel like I am falling from the moon to earth without a parachute. And I’m scared and out of control and can’t stop. I’m trying. I keep trying. And I keep failing. Like I can only hold on to one monkey bar and the second I reach for the next one, the first one is too slick to hold on to but that second one is now too far away and I fall. And things get weird and then everyone walks away and I’m alone and still falling. Is there anything I can do to get control again? That’s all I need. Control. I haven’t felt in control of my own life for a long time. Like my life is some game being played by a chimp on speed. How do I get control again! I need a solution because the ground is coming up fast and I still don’t have a parachute or anything to grab on to so I can slow down. Maybe I can close my eyes and pretend everything is ok? Maybe I can pretend that peo...

To the homeless veteran who came back from the battle physically Yet can't escape because the battle came back with him mentally I see you. To the young mother struggling to make ends meet Not sure how she will make it until the end of the month with extra mouths to feed I see you To the woman who is terrified to be alone Because she’s seen what happens when a woman takes a long way home I see you To the child who does everything not to leave Because home is where the monsters live I see you To the one trying so desperately not to feel Or praying what they see isn’t real Who fights with demons no one can see Who struggles to pretend to live normally I see you To the couple mourning an unseen death Because the longed-for child never came close to drawing breath I see you To the one who feels so overwhelmed and broken They start to see ending it all as the only option I see you To the bullied child just trying to Get through school I see you To the person so ...

What's it like to be me? To be at constant war with your own brain? Well, in short - it's hell. Spending my formative years fighting for my life, literally, left me with some deep trust issues and a fun friend called PTSD. She comes out at the worst times possible - when I feel like someone is abandoning me. When I feel intimidated. When someone is yelling at me. When people are fighting around me. I learned to control some of it. I'm great in an emergency - fire, car accident, violence...  I'm ice cold and calm, during the event at least. Why? Because I don't give myself permission to panic until I am safe. This didn't pan out well for me after I was raped while serving in the military. I was too calm after, too collected. I didn't act like they expected me to because, in my mind, I wasn't safe yet. I had to stay calm and strong until the danger passed. The end result? I lost my military career because I was too calm. If only they could have s...

You've made my life hell. You came into my life without permission and stole everything. Yet you haven't left and I can't make you leave me alone. You won't leave because you've become a part of me, a part of my identity that I can't stand. It started when I was forced to act like an adult even though I was barely a teen. I heard your whispers as we waited to see if he would wake up. You got louder after he did wake up and took his revenge for me returning his life to him. I shouldn't have done that. I should have let him die. I should have walked away. I earned every bruise, every broken bone, every beating. I deserved his harsh words, his insults, and his rage. I caused it. And I started to believe you. Then your whispers changed. You started telling me to do things. That I was too pathetic to live so I should just take matters into my own hands. Obviously, I was never successful in my attempts but even now, I think about it. I consider how easy it w...

I had a dream last night. It was a dream about something that never actually existed anywhere by my mind. A time when I actually believed I meant something to you. I knew it was a dream right away because it featured things that never happened in our relationship. The thing that made this dream so memorable is that the dream was a shadow, but I dreamed of how things really were. And I wasn’t actually a player in this dream. I was a viewer. I watched it unfold and saw undertones that were disturbing, to say the least. So I could see what I wanted with rose-colored glasses, but the reality was always there to remind me. At first, we had that honeymoon perfect relationship... except I couldn’t tell anyone I was dating you. Ever. Did you know there are no pictures of you left? Or that your name never crosses my lips? I saw you leave and come back, but instead of seeing you regretting leaving, I looked at the pattern. You would wait until I seemed more gullible. And things would be gr...

I've been doing some soul searching lately, particularly about the serious relationships I have been in, of which there are only 3. Well at least 3 where I felt it was serious. I've been on dates, I've had one night stands and casual hookups in the friends with benefits category. Anyway, I am looking at each relationship to find where I went wrong, what I did to help destroy the relationship, and maybe find a way to avoid the problems from repeating themselves.  So here we go.  1. The "I swear I will be getting a divorce, we don't even live together" guy Let me preface by saying that when we started dating, I didn't even know I was the 'other woman' - in fact, I never wanted to be that woman. I found out he was married after we had been dating for 7 months. His wife called and I answered - oopsie. Turns out, the guy was not only married, he had 3 kids with his wife and another on the way.  At the time, I was 18 and quite naive. Ho...

Let me preface this blog: It is about child loss. It may trigger you and make you sad. That isn't what my intention is, but today is the 28th anniversary of the death of my sister and I have caught some feels that have never hit me this hard before. Feels that have unearthed emotions that I have been suppressing. So, there's your warning. This blog is not light-hearted. Right now I am writing with a heavy heart and tears blurring my vision as I remember not just my sister, but also the 4 out of 5 pregnancies that ended too soon. Whenever I am asked how many siblings I have, I always answer that I am the eldest of 9 children - 5 sisters and 3 brothers. I never really break it down to "I have 5 siblings with the same mom but different father. I have 1 sibling who shares both mother and father with me. I have 1 sibling who has the same dad. I have 2 siblings who share no blood ties to me but are a part of my mother's 3rd marriage. Oh, and one of my sisters that shares a...