I Guess Sometimes Running Isn't The Answer

Here I am, doing the same thing I have always done, hoping for a better outcome without changing the direction of the flooding tide. There are heavy decisions hanging over my head that I am avoiding in hopes that they will make themselves; if I wait long enough, they might... but having them hanging is not making each day easier.

Avoidance. Escape. I want them; I feel as though I need them.

I know that avoidance as a coping mechanism almost all of the time falls short of "helpful" or "healthy"; and yet... It has been more than a week since I sat at my stepmother's table and shared a meal with them. I have tried to push away the thoughts, the emotions, the ideas. I have worked to build ladders against the walls of paranoia so that I can pretend they don't exist. I have built dams and wells and thrown into them the sadness, the guilt, the fear, the anger, the shame, the disgust. They continue to bubble up, bubble out and flood my brain the way the Brisbane river flooded Southbank last week. I have alternately reached out and retreated; struck out and struck in; fought and loved and hidden. And what I have done more than anything else is run. In any way I can, I have taken off running and not stopped until that panicked feeling went down a little again.

I need to find a way to control this crisis, because this became one far too quickly and far too strongly. I am in serious distress and I need to level it out enough that my skills have some impact.

I've been thinking about this all day, and I think I know how I'm going to do that. I think I know the right way to handle this, but I'm not absolutely sure. I might make it worse - but at least I will have tried... and if I don't do anything, it's still going to keep getting worse on its own.

Don't get me wrong; as much as I have avoided, I have also been trying to do what I need to, in tiny ways. I wrote a journal; I wasted about four thousand words avoiding and then I wrote a thousand words about the visit. I have mentioned that I'm struggling. And tiny ways at trying this are great, but they're not enough. if I want to keep my head above water, I need to make bigger steps.

I need to actually stop running. I need to start looking at this for what it was, and that's going to mean learning how to accept it. It's going to mean talking about it and writing about it and actually being honest about it. It's going to be uncomfortable.

But how do I voice this tangle of emotions? How do I extricate myself from the guilt, shame and disgust long enough to allow any of the other emotions a look in; or for long enough to allow anyone else in? I need to figure it out and soon.

I need to trust in my own beliefs, I need to trust in my own self; I need to let go enough to trust in the pockets of safety that there are here where the waters aren't so rough and I can rest a little.

When you are swept off your feet and carried away on the tide, how do you regain your equilibrium?

Situation Coathanger (WARNING: SA)

WARNING: This post talks about sexual assault.

Once there was a little girl with a mummy, a daddy and two brothers. From the time she was born, her daddy loved her very much, and paid her more attention than he ever paid her brothers. Her mummy didn't like that very much, so to make up for it, she spent more time with her two sons. When the little girl's daddy started to be inappropriate, her mummy didn't notice. Eventually, the mummy got tired of the daddy never paying attention to anyone but his little girl, so she got a divorce from him. Every second weekend and a share of the holidays, the mummy sent all the children to spend time with their daddy; and later, with their daddy and his new wife. When the children visited their daddy and stepmother, they were usually not treated very nicely, not even the little girl, and the whole time, the daddy was inappropriate with the little girl, and so was her new stepmother.


When she was 12, her mummy kicked her out and sent her away to live with her daddy. After two years, her daddy didn't want her anymore either and he sent her back to her mummy's house. For the next few years, when she went with her brothers to visit her father and her stepmother, he wasn't inappropriate in that way anymore. When the girl got old enough, she moved back out of her mother's house and got married. That didn't go very well for her, either, but her father and stepmother knew they couldn't touch her while she was married. When the girl's husband wanted a divorce, she found a new boyfriend to keep her safe, but when that ended, she had to move back in with her mother.


The little girl's mother wanted to prove that she was a good mother, so even though the girl was now a woman, she had to call her father on special days and wish him nice ones, because if she didn't, her mother might kick her out again, and this time she didn't have anywhere to go...


I am 27 years old, and even though I have tried to cut contact with them; if my father and stepmother want to contact me, all they have to do is ring my home number, and I am bullied and/or tricked into talking to them. I am 27 years old, and whenever I am bullied into seeing my father, he still assaults me.

I am working on getting out of here. I have been on the housing list for a year, as the highest priority. I am in the process of moving interstate so that I can be and feel safe. But in the meantime...

In the meantime, my younger brother came down to my bedroom on Wednesday night, and asked me whether I was doing anything on January 8. I didn't even look up from what I was doing, I told him I wasn't sure but presumably I had no plans. As he said, "good, then you're going to Dad's", I looked up and saw the phone in his hand. My father had to have heard everything. My brother walked away, triumphant.

Ten minutes later, he returned and handed me the phone because my father wanted to talk to me, too.


There is no such thing as safety in this house, not for me. He can get me anywhere. He can come after me at any time, and my family will just hand me over.

This is always a difficult month for me, for unrelated reasons, but right now I am a mess. I am in the process of trying to quit alcohol as a coping/destruction mechanism; I am trying to organise things for this move; I'm in the process of reporting the assault when I was 15; I am trying to fix the friendships that fell apart when I came back from a holiday three months ago; there's a few other things going on that I'm not able to talk about right now; and I am trying to deal with everything that November means for me... and now this.

I want to say that I can't do this, that I don't have what it takes to live through this, but I know that if I choose to, I can and I will. I'm struggling, though, to want to choose to. Until I can get out of here, this is what my life will always be. And that's hard to know.

I know I am walking into a situation where I am going to be assaulted. I know that as much as I have been trapped into it, that doesn't stop it being a choice. And that means that I am, by definition, choosing to be assaulted. And that's where it gets too hard. Because I do not want it, but I am choosing it. And if I am choosing it, I deserve it. If I am choosing it, when it happens, it will be my own fault. It would be different if I didn't know, if I thought there was even a chance I would be safe, but all of my precautions come to nothing, every time. And I still go. I do have reasons for why I make the choice I make, but I cannot shake the belief, the knowledge, that this is my own fault.

This coat hanger binds me too tightly, I can no longer breathe. I wanted to challenge these thoughts, but I don't know how.

If anyone out there has any suggestions, they would very much be gratefully appreciated right now.



Cheerleading/Challenge Statements:
It's okay to do things to look after myself. It's okay to be a little bit gentle with me right now.
Even if it feels like the rest of my life will be like this, it won't be. Eventually something will change.



*Explanation on title: Carol and I were discussing this sort of situation after my call to dad for Father's Day. When she asked me to give the situation and the feelings associated with it, a shape, it was very clearly a coat hanger.