Ow

I don't know how to start this other than to say I'm fucked up.

I had a good class tonight and I had a horrible class tonight. It was good in that I followed my impulses and I got angry and I was hurt and I pissed people off. I affected and was effected, which is the goal in these exercises (right after living truthfully). I missed an impulse to kiss my partner - the thing about kissing is that once you do it once, you want to do it again, and not necessarily in the same exercise, but it's one of those things where if you don't kiss anyone for a very long time and then you get a chance to kiss someone, you remember how much fun kissing is and how nice it can be and you really start to miss it and you start to wish you had someone to kiss regularly and if you don't, well, then you just get sad - but this time the exercise didn't die in that moment. We kept it alive. I think because he wanted to kiss me, too, but didn't because he didn't think I wanted to so he got frustrated with me and with himself and we were able to connect on that. So in that respect, it was a great exercise. The teacher let us go a long time and we ran the gamut of emotions until we kept getting into this pattern of closeness followed by self-doubt followed by frustration based in miscommunications and so on and so forth. It was a great exercise. I felt really good about it when I sat down.

But then I didn't get back up again. Part of me was pissed that a woman I worked with earlier had grabbed my scarf and choked me and when I got angry with her for that, another guy jumped in and called me irrational. Irrational. For being angry that someone choked me with my own scarf. But this other woman then came in and she got it. She saw that I was hurt and my hurt was manifesting as anger. She said, "Misunderstood," and I think a little part of me fell in love with her. And I wanted to write about everything, I wanted to pour it all out so that maybe I could be understood somewhere because I'm not in class, so I sat for the rest of the class. I could say I was tired and cold and my tummy was feeling a bit ooky, but I knew that my impulses were telling me to keep my ass in my seat.

And the whole way home...my head just hurts. I don't know how to get people to understand me. And then my first impulse is why should that bother me so much? I'm tough. I'm strong. I'm independent. But as much as I fancy myself Superwoman, I had to admit to myself in my car on my way home that I need someone to understand me. I need someone in class to realize that when it looks like I'm picking a fight, I'm trying to engage. I'm trying to call you out on your shit, and I need someone to call me out on mine. Yes, I am strong. I made myself strong because I was repeatedly hurt as an adolescent. It wasn't abuse any worse than what your typical teen has to deal with, but every single thing I did was wrong - I dressed wrong, I showed my emotions wrong, I chose the wrong life path, I befriended the wrong people, I just in general behaved wrong. I was criticized everywhere I went. I was probably praised, too, but I remember the criticisms more. That's just how I work. I can't build on the positives - yes, I'm smart and funny and pretty, but its hard to be more smart or more funny or more pretty. You venture into "trying too hard" territory. But you tell me where I'm fucking up and I can work on that. Tell me I need to open up more. Tell me I'm not following my impulses. Tell me I'm a bitch. Those are things I have control over. But tell me enough of that and I build up a thick skin. It's a survival thing.

I've been saying for years that I'm looking for a challenge and I feel it. I feel that it's right here and it's going to happen any second, but it hasn't happened yet. Someone is going to call me on my shit and I'm going to lose it and have a break through and be completely vulnerable and that will be that. It will be my catharsis. It will be what will keep me sane for the next year.

And I hate having to admit that I need someone. And I'm afraid of how people will react to that. I just told you all that I'm broken and scared. You know what? I am broken and scared. Who isn't? But I don't need somebody to fix me. You can't "fix" a rape victim, or someone who was beaten as a child - that's not what recovery is about for those people. It is about acknowledgment and acceptance. I am broken and scared and I just need someone to sit with me for a minute while I am broken and scared and just let me be broken and scared. There is nothing wrong with being broken and scared. Those things don't need to go away. I think it is wonderful that I am broken and scared and that I can admit those things and I'd really like someone to see those things and just say, "Okay." I don't want to talk about why I'm broken and scared. That's not important - I know why and how to deal with it. But a refusal to see me as broken and scared means I'm something else. It means I'm the strong one or the intimidating one or the smart one or the one with a ribbon in her hair or the quiet one or the confrontational one or the girl with the annoying/wonderful laugh. I don't want to be any of those things. I want to be a person. I want to be acknowledged as a person and accepted as a person, flaws and all. I don't want the flaws to go away; I want them to be celebrated.

So I come home, hating that I have admitted to myself that I need something from someone. I come home not knowing how to get that. I come home wanting to be able to go there in exercise with someone in my class, but not knowing yet who I can trust with that, even though I know in my heart I can trust all of them with it and they will love me that much more if I show all of that. I come home frustrated and tired and hurty and broken and annoyed with myself and satisfied and irritated with my own contentment with being okay. I come home in desperate need of a hug and a good cry. And I come home with the knowledge that I will be fantastic tomorrow because of everything I learned while sitting on my ass in class today.