Updated December 29, 2009
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One of those ‘sort out my thoughts on paper’ kind of writing….

Where did this start?  The last two days have been high energy, productive – good.  But through the good an undercurrent has been running.  Actually the undercurrent has been there for a long time – thought about here and there without focus – just feeling.

The undercurrent has a name of sorts I suppose.  When put on paper it sounds rather silly.  Oral fixation.  What is that?  It is the need to have something in my mouth – cigarette, candy, food, alcohol.  It was the recognition that I would not be able to quit smoking until I could ‘cure’ the need to have something in my mouth.  I thought it was just discipline required.  I was wrong.

I went on the net today and typed in ‘oral fixation’ to try and find what the medical community has to say about the subject.   I thought I might find that it is our body telling us we are lacking in some form of nutrition or some such thing.  I was wrong.  I came across a page that had to do with eating disorders.  In the article there were twenty questions to ask that had to do with behaviour as an adult that reflected trauma as a child.  Not all the questions applied, but enough for me to, once again, ask the questions I have asked on and off for years.  What am I hiding from myself?  Why do I not feel whole?  Why do I feel that I’m never good enough, never accepted?

I have walls that do not let people in.  From the perspective inside the walls it does not feel like the walls are very high or very thick and yet… what?  It feels like no-one has cared enough to climb in here with me where I live and feel what I feel and just know me and say its’ okay, your okay, I love you anyway.  It seems like the little girl of me is always saying. “I’ll be good; I’ll be what you need me to be; what can I do for you?”. All of this with the expectation that no matter how good I am you will leave anyway and I will be alone again.

I have great chunks of time, places, people wiped from my memory both as a child and as an adult.  I always thought that it was just a penchant for not remembering the day-to-day trivial things of life.  I knew I had forgotten most of my childhood and figured it was a protective measure.  But I thought it was not affecting me as an adult so I didn’t have to concern myself.  In reading that article today I see that once again I was wrong.  It is affecting me.  There is a deep well of pain inside of me, but I do not know the source, and not knowing the source I do not know how to deal with it.   I have no one to talk to because I do not wish to be a burden – because given the woes of this world and what could be I have no right to feel my pain let alone express it.

It is important that I am clear here.  I talk a lot about how we are each many rooms in a house.  It is a good analogy if for no other reason then the fact of the walls that separate the rooms.  In most of the rooms in my house I am okay.  I have learned much in my fifty years on this earth.  Measured against the whole my house is solid.  What I am dealing with here is an attic hidden from view and cluttered with broken pieces of glass that are sharp and will most definitely cause pain should I venture into that dark room.  And yet I must.  I don’t know exactly why.  I only know that with what I know I should not be where I am.  There is garbage in the attic and it must be swept out, picked up and burned before I can feel clean, completely clean.  The problem is that I can’t identify the garbage.  I only know it is there.

April 8, 1999