Shield your eyes while I quietly implode, okay?
Excuse me if I can't explain why I wake up wanting to hurt myself. Total despair and I don't know why. Sure you have the answers for everything. I don't and until I (I, do you hear me?) find them there isn't any point to validating me like some sort of mental patient. I see it. I see everything. I know how it appears. I realize it doesn't make sense and yet everyone around me continues to allow it. It will pass, things will get better. You won't feel out of control anymore, they say. And then someone changes the medicine again. New hours, new routines, new feelings and it overwhelms and Bridget loses it and gets to sleep for a whole day all over again.
Only this time she didn't sleep so well or so much and she woke up feeling dangerous.
And I'm over here hiding in a tiny corner of me and I don't like it. I can't see anything and I'm afraid. No, not afraid of the dark, afraid of myself, don't you see that? I can't shut it off.
I'm not going to hurt myself but it's right there, the feelings. The easy way out. The end to all this bullshit. All the pain, all the looking up to see you staring at me with that equal threshold of pain radiating from your own eyes because no, you can't fix this. You just can't and wanting it so badly makes absolutely no difference in the world.
And I'm sorry for this but here it is. You going off to call the doctor and ask for help or advice doesn't make a difference. They don't know me. They're going to get paid whether I feel better or not. There's no stakes for them. Things were better when you were calling the shots and frankly I don't care if you felt you had to give up control to save face, to prevent the comparisons. They weren't fair anyway and why you listened when you should have kept going is a mystery.
A mystery I solved. It was me. You were afraid I wouldn't get anywhere so you passed me off to the professionals and agreed to stay close to observe and assist and support and all the other things you do so well. You want me back. The happy girl. Not this. You doubted yourself.
Don't do it with me. I don't need the second guessing. I need everything you gave me before. Take off the gloves, throw away the psychobabble and the drugs and just take my goddamned hand and make sure I have distractions. The rest will fix itself.
I promise.
And even if I say I'm going to hurl myself off the top of a building, I'm not. Are you mad? Ruth and Henry only have us now. And I have you. And I wouldn't give any of you up willingly so don't be scared of my words. They're just stupid words. I have millions of them, and if I can ever find the wherewithall to sit down and sort them out and arrange them perfectly I will have all my answers and then I'll feel better. I know it.
In the meantime, can I exchange this? This pain? This unreal intangible pain in my heart that doesn't ever let up? The physical pain was so easy. Child's play that I could gauge and work with. I work hard, I did everything I was told and then I healed. I felt better. I can move again. I'm not wrapped up anymore. I'm not marked by his hands. I can let that go. So why won't this work? Why won't the intangible pain let up even for a moment? How do you presume to understand how your soul can flinch, a visible reaction to an invisible terror? It's crushing me.
Because I've been a wife, a compliment, a trophy, a toy for so long I don't know how not to be, that's how. Told how to dress, how to think, how to feel and what to do. The freedom of now is overwhelming. I am overwhelming now. A million miles a minute headlong into everything and I kick myself hard every time I want to ask for help or defer on a decision because I can't make it. I don't know which end is up.
You, you stand there with the patience of Job, and it's so fucking maddening. It makes me want to scream because it's taking too long and you don't really want this. You have no idea who is going to walk out the other side of this or even if there's a promise that anyone will ever walk out at all.
Yet still you stand there waiting, and helping, being steady and keeping the kids happy while Mommy goes to her room and cries herself to sleep without ever knowing why. Manning your post simply because you promised you would and you'll lift them up and be the only constant good thing in a world that sometimes seems to be filled with night-black snarling tangles of rage and they're coming straight at me. You can only hold them off for so long. And clutching me to your chest while you fight one-handed isn't going to make for any easy victories. Not this time around. That's right about how positively fucked up I am. The worst thing is you alternate between wanting to do this all for me, and shoving me forward and insisting I do it myself. Just when I get going and I feel like I'm getting somewhere something else happens and you step in and take over again. In the non-control way, of course. Letting me think I'm doing it all myself and I'm possibly as dumb as I look because I prefer it that way. Honestly. Heartbreakingly.
Please. Just fix me. Because I'm not having any luck.
So everyone wanted to know how Bridget feels today.
Aren't you sorry you asked?
