Pretense
The most difficult part of this whole thing is the pretending. It’s giving those standard answers to the questions on how you are doing…how you are feeling. No one wants to hear someone say, yeah, today I feel like a miserable piece of shit again….but that is what it amounts to…what I feel is:
• A good deal of self-loathing. Don’t tell me what a great parent I am when my daughter just took her own life. I didn’t even see it coming but the signs were there. I chalked it up to a whole lot of age appropriate behavior but never once looked at myself and thought, “you know what, you need to try harder….hug her instead of ignoring her when she seems impossible”
• A sense of disbelief that the world would dare go on and progress from day to day.
• So miserably sad that it manifests itself in actual illness…making me gag at the thought of food and leaving me vulnerable to every miserable germ that decides to come my way.
• So angry. At her. At me. Was I really so blind? How could she?
• Fake. Getting up, taking care of work and family…I would love to crawl into a dark hole and close my eyes
• Confused…that her room is still empty, that her bed is made. She never made her bed. I go lay in it just to mess up the covers.
• Pissed off that time is so cruel as to take the smells that were hers out of her clothes out of her pillow out of her blankets and other things. I really hate time.
• Sick. Sick that her birthday is in just a few days. How could she? How do I?
The sad thing is that after a while you get so good at “pretending” that people will actually get mad that you seem so calm about it.
I hear this ALL the time.
Pretense is a survival tool. One has to think of it as acting like the person one wished they were, instead of dwelling on the person that one actually is.
I wonder sometimes how you are getting on. So now instead of wondering I think I’ll just imagine being nearby and, I don’t know, sitting quietly and guarding you. Maybe giving you some of my energy. There’s nothing I think anyone can do… I wish I could. Wish I could do something.
“Pretense is a survival tool.” Very true.
I had a friend once – an elderly lady. I loved her. When she died, her family gave me an old sweatshirt of hers. I sealed it in a plastic bag. Once in a while, over 5 years later, I open the bag for a few minutes and I can still detect her scent. I don’t care how odd that sounds. I miss her and her scent brings her back to me for a few brief seconds.
The day I found out, I wanted to call you sooo bad, but couldnt. Dad told me to over and over and I didnt. Like I told Dad, nothing that I say is gunna change things or make you feel any better. I had no words! All I can do is be here for you the best I can. I understand that you dont even have things to say to people when they ask you. I just want you to know, even though I cant make anything that happen change, or make you feel any better, I will always be here for you! I know we dont even know each other very well as sisters but I still love you just as if you were raised with me =D Keep your head up! Love you and you are always in my prayers..
Just wanted to leave my thought tracks,..and let you know you and your family are still in my prayers. I am often afraid I will type/say the wrong thing so I just read then close my eyes and pray for you.
“The most difficult part of this whole thing is the pretending.” Yeah it is, and should be, you know? People want to deny, huh. Like Ricardo up there wrote. The lovely thing about blogging this is that there does not have to be a pretense here, not for those who have read for a long time and know, expect, things to feel shitty. To the bones shitty. So just let it be what it needs to be here, eh? I know I expect it, in fact hope it, from you and need no pretense.
(In fact, reading this comment, “The sad thing is that after a while you get so good at “pretending” that people will actually get mad that you seem so calm about it,” it’s okay even to be good at pretending to be calm if you need to!! The point is, this is about you, this is YOUR process to work out and work through, and in this place, at least, you can be what you need to be…….. Oh this make me miss 360 a bit. I’ve got most of my crew at Multiply, and then the rest on FB, which is how I remembered to check in here today, but one of the nicest things I remember there was the supportive gathering there. Not that Multiply isn’t, not that FB isn’t, it’s just that it was in one *place* for me back in those days.
Anyways, I am glad you have this. Just keep writing about it. It’s your honest place, the writing, and I am expanded as a person by being the reader of what you have to say. Thank you.)
I remember the questions and ” how are you” and wanting so bad to say ” What do you think” with the look that goes with it. The pain being such a constant in my life that I felt like something was wrong on the ocasions when it wasn’t the overwhelming thing in my mind. People wanting to make everything go around how I was feeling and wishing they would just go on and leave me alone if I feel like joining in I will, but don’t make me plan every thing that needs to happen. Sorry for rambling here what I mean is its a horrible thing and it is what it is, we want so much to do or say something that matters, that would give you some relief, forgive our clumsiness in that effort.