In 4 days it will be 5 years since my mother died. So much has happened in those 5 years. I’ve experienced things that would make her proud and things that would… Well, let’s just say I’m content in knowing she’ll never witness the other sides of me.

I feel alone more than ever now even though people surround me. My mother was the person I always went to first. After that, it was always my partner. Then it’s friends and I rarely ask my friends for anything.

I want to turn to someone for help. I want to fall into their arms and just cry. I want them to let me cry. Get it all out. Then I want to be told that I’m strong. I want them to remind me that all the grief I feel is just all the bottled-up love I still have left to give. That my pain is proportional to the amount of love I hold. Then I’ll be reminded of how blessed I am to love so deeply. Then I’ll think of all the people in my life that I can heal with all that love I still have left, even if it’s just little pieces at a time. Then I’ll smile through the tears because I know my Mom would be proud.

But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to write about death. My death. I want to write about the things that tear at my heart when I think about what I want out of this little piece of life I’ve been gifted. And then, I want to talk about how our deepest desires and greatest fears can provide us with clues to the damage that trauma has done to us and left us with.

My deepest desires and greatest fears all revolve around one thing. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, or know me at all I’m fairly certain you’d be able to guess it in one try. Here’s a hint… It’s about love.

My deepest desire is to be loved. Loved in a way that I feel loved. I want to know without a doubt that I mean something to someone… Romantically. Intimately. I want to be known and understood.

Something that seems so simple. Yet, it has eluded me. Yes, I have loved. I’ve loved a few people with all my heart. I was fully committed to living my life with them. I’ve sacrificed so much in my attempts to show my love. But I’ve always felt cheated. I’ve always felt that the person I love doesn’t feel the same way about me. I’ve had exes who couldn’t remember our anniversary… after 6 years together. I married a man who didn’t know how to spell my name correctly. I’ve shown men compassion who were only capable of invalidating me. I’ve been faithful to men that had no intention of ever being with me. I’ve supported men both mentally and financially who stare like a deer in headlights in my time of need. I’ve poured my heart out to men who never desired to know me. I’ve clung to men who only push me away.

What can I say? My picker’s off. How do I get you to understand it? I can’t explain it. Why do I do this to myself? Why do we do this to each other? It’s just the way of trauma. It’s the machinery that we’ve been given. So now I just try to understand it. I want to understand the mechanisms of our machinery. How can I best utilize this meat bag I’ve been blessed with controlling?

I believe in Love.

I believe that love is the answer to so many things. Love has the power to heal. It is love that is going to save this world. If we all did as the bible says and loved each other as we love ourselves everything would change for the better. Could you kill someone you love? Could you imprison them? Could you steal from them? Could you rape them? Could you walk past a person you loved if they were starving? Could you allow a person you loved to be homeless? Would you ever hurt them in any way?

But we do harm each other. We hurt each other every day. We live selfishly, judgmentally, and unforgivingly. We criticize. We condemn. We invalidate. We punish. Why? Because we don’t know how to love ourselves and we don’t know how to love each other. We evolved and operate to survive. When we are born into a world of pain, limitations, chaos, evil, and trauma we learn that we can not afford to love. We learn to only worry about ourselves and to disregard the needs of others. Our capacity to love is limited.

Love is a choice.

I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t turn my back on love. When I was being abused I told myself that I would never hurt anyone in this way. I promised myself that I would never stop being kind. I would never stop caring. I would never stop loving.

So many people reject the principles of love. They lack understanding, empathy, and compassion. Why am I so different? Why do I cling to the idea of love so tightly? Why do I feel love for others so deeply? Why is it so difficult for me to find in anyone else who feels the same way? I feel as if there is something wrong with me. But what? Am I wrong for feeling this way? I must be because everyone else can’t be wrong. The majority rules. Right?

Love Hurts

I can’t begin to tell you how much Daddy hurt me. If you’ve been reading my posts for the last year, you have some kind of idea as to my level of suffering. We met because of sex. I wanted to record and sell pornographic content and I wanted a nasty mother fucker to do it with. The first few times we had sex were all recorded. Then we got lost in sex with each other. I never asked him to leave. I loved the way that he fucked me. I loved the way that he held me. I loved the way that he used me. I loved his affection, attention, and his quiet and accepting nature. 

Then it all fell apart. I wanted a relationship with him, but he didn’t want one with me. It destroyed me. It’s been destroying me ever since. Shame took over. Desperation settled in. I repeatedly reached for him only to have him push me away and reject me all over again. I wanted to run away, yet I couldn’t let go. In a way, I still can’t let go. My heart still breaks. I feel flawed. I feel as if there is something severely and fundamentally wrong with me. I feel worthless and unworthy. I began to hate myself.

I wished I was dead more often than not. Every part of my life began to spin wildly out of my control. My days were spent obsessively consuming any piece of information to better understand why I was so unloveable. I was hell-bent on learning how I could become better and how I could win him over.

It never happened. The bond between us only deteriorated. The sex lost all of its intensity. Our time together all but vanished. We communicated in arguments. The connection we once shared slowly faded away. Yet, I still loved him. I still desired him even though all that I loved and everything I enjoyed had died a long time ago. I couldn’t let go of the feelings I had for him in the beginning. I wouldn’t allow myself to give up on something I felt to be so rare.

In the end, the torment was too much. The agony was too paralyzing. The misery was too intense. I had to walk away. I had to give up. Everything that he did and all that he was that made me desire him so deeply had ended a long time ago. We lived cautiously together. With him distancing himself from me in every way possible, so as not to lead me on and hurt me further. And I tried to focus on myself, other people, and other men. 

My Deepest Desire

There was a point in time before my last relationship (with House Cat) that I believed that all I wanted was to be loved. I know that House Cat loved me. He did many things to show his love for me. Yet, it wasn’t enough. The impact of the injury left in me from my childhood trauma made that impossible. You see, I am very sensitive to shame and feelings that I’m too damaged to love. These feelings can pop up at any time and from the smallest infraction. But these small wounds piled up on top of each other. They never healed. They just grew and became more painful over time. I felt uncared for, unappreciated, and used. 

Now I know that my desire is deeper than just needing to be loved. Now I know that I need to be loved in a way that makes me feel loved. Which is probably impossible for me to obtain, since I have such a hard time communicating and asking for the things I need. I choke on my words every time. The pain of having to fight for scraps of affection, having to fight to be heard, having to fight to be understood, became a paralyzing force that’s left me mute. I’m too terrified to tell anyone what I need to feel loved, for fear that it will only result in rejection, or an argument over whether or not it’s something I truly need. 

I need to be loved in a way that makes me feel loved.

My Greatest Fear

I used to think that I didn’t feel fear. I thought this way because I so readily embraced and faced so many things that most people would be terrified of. Things that were dangerous or could kill me weren’t frightening to me. They were exhilarating. They made me feel alive. It wasn’t until I began this journey of awakening and healing that I realized I do have fears. My greatest fears revolve around my son. That I can’t give him a stable home. That the issues I still face because of my trauma will be transferred to him. That the trauma he’s experienced and the suffering he’s seen me go through have fucked him up so badly that they will keep him trapped in a life he doesn’t love living like I have been trapped in my pain. That he will grow to hate me. That he will die before me, or even worse yet, that he will take his own life. 

Outside of the fears I have about my son, my greatest fear is that I will die having never been loved right. That every man that comes into my life will judge me unworthy and leave me. That my emotions will always be the things that are too much to tolerate and will eventually drive everyone away. 

I’m afraid that every man I fall in love with will be too ashamed of me to love me openly. That our relationship will be hidden behind closed doors, or that he won’t even entertain the idea of a relationship with me. That I’ll be left feeling like I have so many times before. Feeling as if I’m good enough to fuck. I’m good enough to use for their sexual gratification. But I’ll never be good enough to love. That no one will feel proud that they have me. No one will understand why I’m so needy, why I need so much attention, affection, and reassurance. When I’ve tried to explain it’s because I’m loved starved, I’ve always been met with infuriating phrases like “you gotta love yourself first”. Really? Because I think I’m a good woman with a good heart and more than worthy of being loved. Even if I can be overly emotional. Even if I am still hurt because of my passed. Even if I’ve never learned how to love myself quite right. Even if no one’s ever made me feel loved. Even if I require more in order to feel and trust that I’m loved. Even if I’m needy and clingy. Even if I seem desperate. 

I deserve to be loved with the same intensity, devotion, and effort that I express my love. I deserve to be taken care of. I deserve to be considered. I deserve to feel as if I’m important and mean something to someone. I deserve to be adored, desired, cherished, and clung to. I deserve to have someone feel that way about me at least once in this life. Don’t I?