I feel hope again, for the first time in a long time. I feel that I am on the brink of a new path in my life, a path of being a stronger more confident woman. So long my view of myself has been that I am broken, crushed, damaged. I was not able to truly see myself moving into a healthy place in my life, a successful place, because broken crushed children aren't successful. I had this idea that I wanted to be calm and stable, yet the connection was never there. I felt like a farce, a fake . . . As if I was fooling every single person around me and eventually they (whomever they were?) would figure it out and come yank my stability from me.

Tracking back I can recognize this began very early and has built over my life. I was fearful of the loss of my children because they would figure out I was a bad mother, fearful of the loss of my home because I wasn't good enough as a wife, fearful of the loss of relationships because of my anger and frustration, and finally fearful of the loss of my degree if they figured out I wasn't smart enough for it. I have been projecting this fear into my future . . . thinking I am too broken, picturing that broken child as a successful therapist and believing that it was not possible. How could I possibly be successful when I am so broken inside.

Then I heard this . . . . "In my brokenness I find my wholeness" that hit hard. The conversation progressed to talking about how this work, this path I (we) have chosen is forcing us to emerge. Emerge. I can Emerge and become something more then just a broken child. What will I become? This is a thought that has never truly hit home until now. Who I am now is completely based upon who I was then. My brokenness then will create the whole woman in the future. That is powerful.

What does the future hold for me? I have always pictured myself away in a cabin, in the woods, surrounded by trees, completely self sufficient and having a need for nobody. I have planned ways that I could work for myself so that I would not have to interact with others. I never saw myself with a partner. I planned isolation for myself in an intense and deep rooted effort to protect myself from rejection of others. Any others. My need to control the surroundings in an effort to lesson the impact of others finding out I was broken and not worthy.

Now, I can see that. I don't exactly know what it all means but I do know I am aware of it. I know being aware means I can rewrite that story. I can build a new future. I can choose trust in my self and others instead of recoiling in fear and pain. I can be a woman of my choosing. I can emerge.

Waking up with fear an anxiety pulsing through my body. Today I have to drive up that long windy road, knowing that the awful cabin sits there. I want to confront my fear and say its no big deal, that it is just a house with no power but I don't feel that way. I feel panic just picturing the cabin. I try to visualize it being a safe place or even a nuetral place but the image is so frightening I can't even hold it in my mind without shaking and blocking it out. I realize more and more through the years that my defense mechanism is to shut it down. If it hurts, don't go there. Let it go. This is not helpful.

How am I supposed to work with clients and do therapy when I can't even follow the simple directions that i am giving? How can I lead them to a place of sitting in the raw pain and working through it when I am woefully unable to do it myself? I don't know what all my pain is, what all its from. I want to close it out and say it doesn't matter but it does matter . . . or else it would not be so terrifying.

Why the hell did I choose this internship? To prove something to myself? what the fuck was I thinking, I have nothing to prove. Why do I torture myself in these ways. I must have known on some level somewhere that this would trigger painful issues. Issues that would have been far better laid to rest and not touched. Why did I choose this therapist to work with? Why somebody who is so difficult and so pushy?

I wish I could get sick and not go. Just curl up under a blanket all day and forget that this area even exists. Not have to face her comments about me and my sexuality, about the work I do, or about the ways I should not be concerned about anything. This whole situation just is as messed up as it can be. I want out. Now.

This is ridiculous. Night after night sleep escapes me. I can feel the tension in my body, feel the anger and raw emotions that begin to rise when exhaustion is bordering. I know the depression and dark place I go to. I see it. I don't want it. I just want to lie down and sleep . . . long enough to replenish and refurbish my body.

Sleep comes so quickly. I'm exhausted and the second I stop I collapse into a deep e xhausted sleep . . . but within hours the dreams begin. Dark swirling dreams of choking, dreams of running with nowhere to go. I hear them coming after me but there is nowhere to run, no place to hide. I'm scared.

I want to have a place to run and hide, somewhere safe, some place that is soft to land. The nightmares have to stop.

Depression scares me, hurt and pain scares me. Why can't I just force my way through this?

Is this the part when i pull my hair out because I can't figure it out. Somebody needs to make me a set of dating rules, what you can do and what you cant. yes you can keep friends and go out but no, not if it makes your partner uncomfortable. But what makes your partner uncomfortable. how do you know. Thats why dating sucks. Thats why people should just be single or get married. No in between. If I was married I would never go out during the week and have drinks with friends.

I love him. Thats what it boils down to. I love him and feel like just with one choice to go out and have drinks I have lost him. I think its more then that but I don't know what it is. this is the first time he has refused talking to me and it feels like shit. I'm sure I am pulling all my own bullshit into it but it hurts, it feels like shit and I don't understand.

I see a goodbye coming. The closing of a door because I am too much of a pain in the ass. I'm not worth the time to work it out. This wasn't my intention and sometimes I don't know why I am such a stupid bitch about this stuff. I am so confused, my mind is spinning in circles. I don't know what made the problem. was it going out? was it drinking? I don't get it . . . we go out and drink . . . was it not asking first? Or . . was . . I don't know??? What happened so that even a phone call is not alright.

I just want to know the rules. I just want to know how to love him and have him as my own and yet keep the piece of me that he was drawn to in the first place. The piece of me that is active and outgoing and lives a full life.

What happened? Where did I go wrong? Why does this always happen . .. its like im woefully uncapable of keeping a man . . . any man . . . happy. It never mattered before but, it was never him before. This relationship is different. This is the man I want to grow old with, the one I want to watch the age weather his face, I want to see him grow and learn and expand . . I want to walk down the street holding his hand when we are old and grey, I want to explore this world with him. This matters. This is worth fighting for. I don't know what to fight for though.

God . . .. did I throw it away over a few drinks? Really? Or is it something else. Something I can't see. I don't know. Why can't I figure this out?

waking up at night, gaspin, clawing at the bed with the sheets wrapped around me . . . Hearing the agony of screams as somebody is trying to escape the pain, slowly realizing the screams are my own. Waking with the dry throat and the heaving breaths . . .trying to figure out if I am dying or awake in some strange place. Nightmares. They come in waves . . . easing off just when I think I can't handle one more night of lying there . . . terrified to sleep and yet exhausted by the mental and emotional strain of walking through my daily life.

Why now? Why so many dreams and thoughts, memories filtering to the top of my consciousness like oil drifts to the top of the water. Nothing is new . . . except the memory of the fear . . .sometimes dull and aching, other times sharp and painful. Awareness is new too. I was such a scared child. I had no safe place, no safe harbor, no place to bury my head and know that all was going to be well.

Living in our Skookum house is where the fear began. Thoughts drift through my heart and through my soul. I feel my chest tighten and my legs begin to grow weak . . . my toes tingling when I remember, when I free my mind and go back.

Memories of walkign down that damp dark porch to Dads shop . . .screaming "daddy daddy daddy" I would scream and shake, afraid of the dark and the cold but so much more afraid that when I opened that door my father would be lying in a bloody pool in an effort to end his own life. When he would finally answer me the relief would wash over me in waves and I would race to get out of the dark and cold . . . race to the shop that held his tools and machinery to tell him to come to dinner.
Dinner. . .meals .. . those were loaded times. Never knew when Dad was going to be furious and screaming or throwing things. Moms shelf was always in danger of having things thrown from one end to the other. Dad in a fit of rage, mom crouched on the floor begging him to stop. "mitch please please stop" she would cry. It was my job to intervene. My job to calm him before he became more violent and took it out on us. My job was to protect her and goddammit i was so young, I must have been about nine. Hannahs age.

The night we broke down, coming back through Sams valley late at night. We blew a tire and had to go into town. Dad was telling me that he hated my mother and wanted her dead. He wanted to twist her head off off her neck until she popped like a balloon and was no longer alive. I had just seen a movie where a woman's head exploded and couldn't erase the image from my mind of my mothers head exploding all over me. I begged my father to calm down, told him to hit me but not my mom. I didn't want my mom hurt. I told him she didn't mean to . . . I was always defending her. He was shaking in rage, his face red and sweaty. He was furious . . . over what I no longer can recall. Eventually we were able to get home and I thought I would die that night. He was screaming and jerking the wheel all over, the car was veering all over the road. My mom was screaming back. I huddled in the back with my hands over my ears trying to drowned out the screaming.

Always screaming and threats, always violence. Bruises and scrapes from thrown items were the norm. I was so proud to have Robin come to visit for a weekend. She was the most popular girl in the school and I finally had a friend over. Dad was furious . . . he threw a cup of coffee at me and struck me with it. Robin was scared and her parents came for her. I didn't understand. I knew I was bad and had lost a friend . . .

It was awful. The therapist made my dad take his guns out of the home because he was threatening to kill us. He took all but one out. He still had the one gun . .. always so aware of that gun and wanting to use it to shoot him. I wanted him dead. Then came the day that he loaded it and began parading with it. Mom and I ran as fast as we could to the van to get away. My legs couldn't move fast enough. That all too familar feeling of adrenaline racing through my veins. Both mom and I were crying and praying that God would allow our van to start that day so that we could get away. i ran so fast I couldn't turn to see if he was behind us. I thought we were dead. I knew that would be the day. As we hit the van we realized it was going to start and we could get away. My mom drove as fast as she could down that driveway when we realized that he was shooting at us. he didn't hit us . .. but he did hit the trees lining the driveway. Was he trying to kill us? Did he hate me that bad? Do I wonder why I live in constant fear of men?

And, she went back . . . even after he beat the car with the hammer trying to get to us. He would have killed us that night too. Even after he scraped her breast with the throw of a brush and hung her off a bridge. Even after i told her that he had molested me . . . that he had held me down in my little white gown and did what he did. she went back. "katrina, I miss my home and my animals. don't be selfish" thats what she said. Don't be selfish.

so I was selfish and I didn't go back. I began to write. Tonight I found a poem I wrote to my dad . . . then . . my words were strong. I didn't rhyme well, I was child like. . . but the words are strong. I don't know what to think . . . sitting here reading my poems from my childhood. Words that captured moments in time.

Here are my words . . .

Dad
Sadness pulls at my heart
When I think of the innocence you stold
Looking back on you
You must have been damn cold

When I think of the things you have done
I get so angry inside
You pulled me down and hurt me so bad
You wounded my innocent pride

The precious innocence you stold from me
is something i can never regain
but the sad thing is,
I'm sill under your strings
and I can't let go of this pain.

So now I hope your hurting
somewhere deep inside
I guess thats the wrong way to think
or maybe a feeling I should hide

But im tired of having to hide
my feeling thoughts and emotion
maybe this way I can forget
some of this terrible commotion.

I wrote that at fourteen. What The Fuck?

`Or, the one I wrote february 1989. I was what . . .13? This was two months before I tried to take my life . . . when I was in the thick of being homeless and shuffled around town. It was cold that winter, snow to my knees. This was two months before Jim began raping me for the next three years. I was . .. thirteen . .. .

Divorce
The word divorce has always scared me
it started way back when I was just three
member sitting in the wagon my daddy telling me
don't worry honey it will last eternity

Being the kid I was, dumb and naive
how was I to know that someday he would leave
I saw the beatings and all the fithts
but I never thought hed be gone on these long winter nights

I guess its better this way with him not here
because nwo I don't have to spend my life in constant fear
but its still hard cus theres a new fear
it only seems to happen when one of them is near

The drugs and alcohol have taken their toll
taught me some lessons, im no longer a fool.
but I know when she comes near
that shes been out and it brings back my fear

She says she don't drink and that shes fine
but I know better cus I know the sign
She says its her life to do as she wants
but late at night, its me that it haunts

I know I should stop her and not let her go
but if I do she makes me feel so low
she yells at me and leaves me confused
and says bad things that make my heart feel confused.


JESUS . . .. I was thirteen. I was a baby. How could I have wrote that. what the hell was my reality? Random lines from poems back then are tearing out my soul tonight . . " Sometimes life don't seem worth it to try, all you want to do is Cry" . . .. I was 12. TWELVE! "I feel so alone and burning up with pain, my life is like a paper that has been spoiled by a stain" . . . .

flipping through my old book of poems . .. from eleven to fourteen . . . the words rape, pain, stain, death, shame . . . over and over.

and I wonder why i have nightmares

sometimes I wonder why I do what I do?

Why I feel the need to destroy something before it can even get off the ground. There is safety in being sheltered and alone. Safety in holding the walls and doors around me. Safety in the certainty that no pain can come. Do I strive for that safety to the point of destroying my own happiness?

I feel it coming, that mad desperate need to run from absolute fear. I want to be different this time. I want to dig my feet in and stay. I need to stop running out of fear. Pain happens. I can take it. I have taken it before. I can take it again.

it would be so easy to walk away, go back to what I know, finally give in to the fight. It would be so easy to live within the madness that never touches me deeply. So easy to live a lie of a life and shut down again. I don't want that though. I don't. right?