Fragments from My Mind

I'm starting something new on my blog. Something I've not done before (well, I've sort of dipped a toe in it a bit, I admit that) but the idea has crossed my mind on occasion. I have not been comfortable with the idea until now. Talking about myself. I mean, the real myself. The stuff that makes me tick. Especially things about my past. I hardly ever talk about my past to anyone. Not even my husband knows what lurks in the darkness of my mind. I have had strong walls around my soul for many a year because I need them to feel safe.

Feeling safe is something that is especially important to me. In fact, I would say it says everything about me. Yeah. I'm all about the feeling safe thing. It became important when I was very very very young because I did not feel safe as a child-ever, or a teen for that matter. As long as I was living with my parents I never felt safe. I'm gonna repeat that sentence cos, well, it's really saying something about me.

As long as I was living with my parents I never felt safe.

I have memories of events causing terror and fear going back to younger than the age of two. I figure I was about 18 months old at my earliest one. I was still crawling, I know that for sure. In fact, until recently I can honestly say I didn't even know what 'feeling safe' really meant. It's taken 51 years, but I feel safe now.

I had this revelation during the wee hours of this morning, in case you're wondering.

"Whoa!" you might be saying to yourself. "Linda Jo! Where is this coming from?"

It came from a conversation I had with my friends at CDA Yarnies last Wednesday. My friends were the only ones at the meeting. (Not even my daughter had come.) I know the conversation would never have happened if someone I hardly know had been there because I wouldn't have let it. I wouldn't have felt safe discussing it amongst people I hardly know. And when I think about it, that says a HUGE thing about the 3 ladies who were there. And I wish I could think of a way to express this to them.

I won't go into how the discussion started, or how we ended up at the point where this blurped out of me, but I suddenly found myself telling these 3 gals something I have never told anyone, ever. I'm paraphrasing here because the exact words escape me. Basically I told them about how, when I was a kid, if I misbehaved out in public my mother would lean over and hiss at me "Remind me to spank you when we get home!" and how much I hated when she did that because it ruined the whole rest of the day for me and I'd be worrying and debating all the way whether to remind her or not.

If I reminded her, then I was gonna get a beating (and I'm sorry, but that is the only thing that describes what Moms spankings were. Beatings). But if I didn't remind her, then I might escape a beating. However, if I didn't remind her, and then she remembered later, I'd get a beating way much worse than the one I'd have had if I'd just reminded her. It depended on how lucky I felt as to what I did when we got home.

My friend Andrea replied "God Linda Jo. No wonder you have issues with anxiety!" and the conversation moved on.

Side note: Folks. If you do this to your children- GET PROFESSIONAL HELP! You are a child abuser of the worst sort. Stop doing it right now.

That night I couldn't sleep. I had a serious case of insomnia. My brain would not stop buzzing. I read my current book (see side bar) all night because of it. I didn't know why I couldn't sleep. Just that I couldn't. I remember telling someone that I thought it was because I'd had a diet coke earlier that day and it had been a long time since I had caffeine.

Thursday night I was dead tired. So I figured I'd drop right off. Ha! So wrong. Again, I found my brain buzzing and it was so bad that even reading didn't help. I couldn't concentrate. I ended up spending most of the night with the lights out tossing and turning and wishing my brain would just STFU!

What do I mean by my brain buzzing? Random and unrelated thoughts and memories pop up and lead me into pointless conversations with myself that I get quite involved in even though I know it's all totally and completely ridiculous and why can't I stop doing this so I can go to sleep?! Usually reading a book knocks the brain off that track and I can fall asleep quite quickly. Not this time.

Now I know that something is bothering me. It's not caffeine, or the fact that I'm really enjoying the book. There is something deeper going on in my mind. An underlying anxiety. This is a symptom of my Panic Attack Anxiety Disorder. What, pray tell, is bothering me? Anyway, last night when I went to bed I was SO tired that I was hoping I would literally just pass out. I didn't have much hope though. I thought about taking a sleeping pill, but I hate doing that.

Oddly, I fell asleep right away and, darn that sneaky brain of mine, I dreamed the answer to what was bothering me. In my dream, me and Andrea are children on a shopping trip with my mom. For no reason, my mom leans over and says to me "Remind me to give you a spanking when we get home." and Andrea says "God Linda Jo. No wonder you have issues with anxiety." and then we went to the fair where I worried the whole time about getting a beating and didn't enjoy the rides and the animals at all (which made Andrea call me a kill joy). It was a really sucky situation. Not one I care to be in again.

There it is. The anxiety is coming from me knowing I'm starting a new job (Superintendent of Knitting) that I don't know much about. On top of that, what I talked about at Yarnies. An old more serious anxiety that I never dealt with has surfaced.

It is perfectly normal to be anxious about the job. But whenever an anxiety comes into my life, an abuse from my childhood that I have not thought about in ages comes to the surface along with all the long buried emotions that go with it and I find myself having to sit down and deal with it because I couldn''t at the time it happened. That's okay. I'm good with that.

All that got me to thinking about how I really didn't feel safe when I was a kid-something I'd not faced before, and the reasons why that is and the amazing revelation that I actually do feel safe now. Hmmm. A rather productive morning if I do say so myself.

Have a good day.