I’m currently waitlisted for a female therapist. I saw the last guy every week since March I guess, except when I messed up with the appointment times and overslept the alarm a couple times. It became uncomfortable because I always had an edge of mistrust. Worse, I’m not used to making taxpayers spend money on me and that’s all that seems to be happening when I make any attempts to figure out self-advocacy.

Caring at all comes in bursts that never sustain long, and yet again professionals don’t seem worth it. They just push pills and platitudes, fake it til you make it, “have you tried just not thinking about your trauma,” etc. It was easier in a way when I was subsumed with caring for children and it was socially acceptable to put myself on the back burner, but I couldn’t sustain that either. I couldn’t stand being a not-person just because I reproduced, after being made to feel like it didn’t matter when I opened up to my mom about what her third husband did to me. I don’t guess she even believed me. She stayed with him.

I ran away as much to protect those kids from possibly seeing the KM.S aftermath as to protect them from the overwhelming frustration that was basically a Pavlovian response to interacting with them by that point. They wouldn’t help with age appropriate chores, *not even bathing.* (And my cheating husbeast felt his responsibility ended with earning a wage, he didn’t “babysit” his kids.)

Was it “better” when I woke up at six AM after maybe only laying down at two and rushed to get myself out the door before buses cluttered the roadways, since my earliest classes started at 8am and I faced an hour and a half commute each direction? 

Was it “better” when I didn’t get home until after 9pm most nights, to dirty house and dirty kids who hadn’t been fed or made to do their homework so I would at least get to focus on mine? 

Was it “better” when I became an alcoholic trying to find something strong enough to help me sleep because the Benadryl and melatonin stopped working?

I can’t remember if it ever felt “better.” It’s just been wretched. As far as I can remember. Like looking into a ruined pot of chili, some parts are recognizable as what they were supposed to be but there’s no fixing that, it’s better to toss it out than waste money and time trying to fix it. I don’t want any part of this broken system. I don’t want to validate it with participation, not even “for the kids” I wasn’t allowed to prevent when I first sought a tubal at 18 (denied).

I don’t want to stick around watching everything deteriorate if there only choice is to swallow a crap sandwich. I can’t even explain to my kids the whole of why I left, much of which wasn’t even about their behavior or our mutual toxicity. How many years am I supposed to wait before they’re no longer “protected by innocence you shouldn’t steal?”

When do I get to feel understood for the pain and self-sacrifice all those years that I just swallowed it, writhing, because it was financially expedient to rent housing from a sexual assailant who bought my children‘s love over the years?