Tangled Web

This intense sadness makes it feel like I am in physical pain ALL the time. I’ve never experienced anything like this and it’s extreme. The problem is only compounded by the realization that, when I thought I was growing up and building a life, what I was really doing was building a tangled web that I don’t know how to unravel. I built walls, learned to not really experience rough feelings or label them and took on a role where my life really didn’t matter (this was a way I could hide in plain sight). It’s how I’ve always lived my life.

When I am with anyone, if I come to a subject or say something that upsets them or they don’t like, I file it away and remember not to talk about it again regardless of the subject or if it’s about them or me. When I am with the person again, I figuratively look through the file and proceed. When I go anywhere or meet with anyone, I gauge the person and the place. It isn’t something I even think about. It is an automatic and constant response.

Where the feelings are concerned, while I learned to not feel and fully experience them, I still categorized them. When something happened that was hard in any way, I grouped it with other events that made me feel the same way. I built memory banks of times that made me sad, angry and so on. Instead of just labeling them and working through them, then moving on, I, instead, built triggers into my life. For example, I can’t feel sad without many memories popping up, at any give time, of when I felt the same way. I’m assaulted at a time where I’m already hurting. It’s a great example of adding insult to injury.

This poses a huge problem when I’m trying to heal and find freedom. The instances of abuse, pain, betrayal and so on are now linked and woven together by the similarities to other events that made me feel this way. I can’t just sort through what’s happening at the moment because I also have the past coming after me. It’s too much. Imagine having 50 different balls of yarn unraveled, thrown together and mixed up. Then tell someone to put all the strings back into 50 balls of yarn again. It’s an impossible task, or at least one that might cause insanity before it can ever be accomplished. I’m now stuck in the middle of this tangled web and am not sure how to get out of it.

I feel very alone. I blog about what’s happening, but I’ve come to realize that blogging can be very isolating. When you write a personal blog, you are telling about what is happening in your life. That is like my telling my part of a conversation without really having an actual conversation with anyone.Those who read my blog have this information about me but no connection has been made and there is very little interaction, if any. I know that’s the way writing works, but it’s hard.

I understand that this is difficult to explain because it really doesn’t make sense. I, in essence, built my life in a way that cornered me in. To delve into a painful instance invites all the memories that have made me feel this way before to come to the surface as well. I am then overwhelmed and have no idea what to do next. It honestly makes me go into myself more deeply, which only isolates me more.

This has been a long, hard journey. The pain is too much and I feel more isolated than I have ever felt. I’m honestly not sure if it’s something I’m going to be able to take to the point of healing. This tangled web seems too big and I’m stuck in it. I know I have true Hope in my relationship with Jesus, but I am not sure I can see, or even find, the hope in working through all of this here on earth. That fact only causes more pain.

~ Joanna Lynn