Don’t push me

Hiding is my natural state of being. I am the Oz behind the curtain. It started when I was young.

When I was 9 years old, living in abuse and terrified, I would come home from school and run outside to an old stand of forsythia bushes. They were huge and overgrown and backed up on a hillock. There was an area that had been hollowed out by weather and time and I would hide in there with my little red spiral notebook and write like mad. Writing saved my life then and continues to to this day. No one knew about this place or was allowed in with me besides my dog. Not much has changed.

Now I sit here working from the time I sit down with my coffee until I am ready to get off the computer to get ready for bed at night, save stopping here and there to take care of the dogs or do little household things that need doing. This is where I am safe. And I work long and hard to bring all the gifts I have to bear, in the way that I can, into a form and a forum that I believe that I can use to help others because I really do want to help. I want to be of service. I care deeply. I spend a lot of time answering people online and it means a lot to me to do so, and all of the work that I have done in my life and all of the things that I can do that I believe have merit I am weaving together right now into something that I believe will be very special, but I have to make a clear distinction between what I have to offer online and what I have to offer in person. This became an issue today and it has upset me so that I had to remove the blog post I was going to write and write this one just to try to sort out my feelings and I am teary sitting here trying to do just that.

What I simply cannot bear is when I am asked to do something with someone that I am not comfortable doing, and I make my feelings very clear, and still end up being asked, “But couldn’t you just… or maybe you could…” When I was little boundaries were crossed. When I said no it didn’t mean no to the other person. When it happens today I want to scream at the top of my lungs almost hysterically. I realize that this is not the best solution, but, too, the most damaging times in my life with my mother — which went on until months before she died in 2009 — were when she wanted me to do something with or for someone else and I just couldn’t. She would not take no for an answer and when I stayed firm in my resolve not to do the particular thing that she wanted she railed and abused me in such a terrible way verbally I still cringe and get teary thinking about it. Now, I will tell you, when I say no goddammit I mean NO. I’m sorry for the language but this has me so upset I am beside myself.

There is a reason I have created a safe haven for myself here, a reason I rarely ever let someone close to me in person, and the reason I will zealously protect my privacy. I feel absolutely crazy over this in this moment. I know that I sound way too crazy to share this publicly here but you know what? I’m going to, I’m just going to, because right now I need to be heard.

I need to be heard and I need to say it BECAUSE OTHER WOMEN SUFFER FROM THIS TOO. Our “No’s ” are not heard and respected, we are not supposed to say no, we are supposed to absolutely do anything and everything we are asked for another person no matter what the cost to us and I just won’t take it anymore and I don’t want YOU to either. If you are reading this and you know what I mean, if you have ever cowered and cried because when you said no someone kept pushing you and wouldn’t listen, please know that that is NOT okay, that you not only have the right to say no but that you should not have to say it more than once.

No, I can’t do that. It’s a simple sentence, and it should be enough. When it isn’t I nearly go crazy because I wasn’t heard when I was little and I paid a terrible price. I wasn’t heard as an adult and was berated and literally cut to ribbons emotionally by my mother even as she was dying of cancer. And the most terrible thing of all is that she was a wonderful person to other people, I was the object of her rage, so nobody believed me. But not 6 months before she died she did it in front of my dear friend Jeff. HE heard it and he couldn’t believe his ears it was so awful. And when he tried to share it with other family members, being protective of me, they did not want to hear it. They wouldn’t believe that she had said such things. I thank God that one person in all of my life saw the truth, heard the truth. It has been life-saving for me that he heard it. It saved me in more ways than I can say.

Right this moment my whole system is erupting in tears and I am shaking. This is a dangerous place for me to be. I am going to stop here. If my own blog isn’t a safe space for me to vent then no place is. I have said what I needed to say and I will say no more, I simply haven’t the energy. Now I am going to go back behind the curtain, with my notebook and pen, with my dogs. This is it for today. I have no more. Some days I long to go hide behind the forsythia bushes again. This is one of those days.