its hard to escape the past

Working where I do, reading what I read and seeing what I see in my everyday job is hard. It makes it hard to put what happened behind me, extremely hard, but in a weird way it has also made me thankful that what happened was not worse. Well I assume it was not worse. I can only remember parts. Its like my head doesn't want me to remember. Its all fuzzy when I try, which is few and far between admittedly but only for reassurance that it wasn't as bad as it could of been.

I am struggling with this at the moment. I find myself wanting to go running most evenings, as I only usually do when im extremely upset. However I have taken to walking to and from work instead which is about a 2 mile round trip. It gives me time to think, expell energy and give me a release. A much better release than self harming does. I've told people its to get fit and save money, which albeit is true, its only half of the reason.

So far it seems to be working. I feel myself getting back into the negative cycle. Its easier to pull myself out of it than it was before, for reasons unknown. I am happy most of the time, I do miss my family terribly though. Its hard being away from my sister, she's the one I miss the most, we are very close. Probably because of our mum, not a good reason but because she left I feel like I've had to take on her role of looking after my siblings. I may mot have cooked everynight or did the washing ECT as my nan likes to continually rub in our faces, but I have fiercely protected them. More my sister than my brother. I do resent her for that. I feel like I've had to fill in where she has failed to protect us as a mother. When I found out what had happened to my sister I also found out my mother knew we had been through similar experiences but had tried to stop us telling each other. She'd known for years. When I found out I confronted the accused. It nay not have been explosive or threatening, but it was the single most terrifying moment of my life. Afterwards I cried. I felt empowered. In that moment I knew I would do anything for her, that I could do anything for her. I feel like that should have been ny mum, years ago when she found out about both of us.

When I told her what I done she just said "thank you for being braver than I ever could" since then we have had a rocky relationship. On the surface it looks normal, we laugh talk alot but underneath its complicated. On her side guilt and on mine love hate and resentment.

Its a weird feeling loving and hating someone. I have no feelings towards the accused. Wouldn't shed a tear if they died. Would feel relief I suppose.

Ok I lied.. Without meaning to! I hate the accused, but not because of what they did to me, because of what they have done to my family. For making us subject to that distinct fear of being alone with them. Its like nothing else I have ever known. Burning every muscle in my body, urging me to run, screaming, but at the same time rooting firmly to the spot, making escape impossible.

This haunts my dreams.

Panda Girl 2

xxxxx

Dealing with myself...

Sometimes I find it hard to deal with my own emotions. All of a sudden I have these feelings running around after each other and my stomach goes all queasy... Not sure why; it is hard to try to controll, its not a nice feeling at all. Especially if not addressed as it can give me stomach pains and have other effects that do not need details... Every time I feel like im going to lose him or he has lost interest in me it feels like my heart will fall out of ny butt, with all of my other appendeges.

Im having a hard time with the fact that he could hurt me if he wanted to, I dreamt last night that he did - punched me in the back of my head after "rescuing" me from my ex...

I guess im just not an easy person to keep happy; im too paranoid and distrustful of people. Every relationship I have has ebded in disappointment, except for my two sisters. Not that I love my brother any less than them, but we have grown distant these past two years.

I can put these bad relationships down to the two most influential relationships I had growing up, both of which should have been nurturing but in reality were the complete opposite, leaving me kind of emotionally damaged; my mum and my paternal nan.

My mother and I will always have a strained relationship as I feel she has done little on.tje way of taking care of my siblings and I and is always using her own needs before theirs.

My nan and I don't even have a relationship. She is still not talking to me despite me approaching her and offering the olive branch over 2 year period. Even though when applying for uni she said "its a pie in the sky dream" guess what I came top of my class, did a masters and now applying for a PhD.

Everything I have been through has made me strong, independent and determined. Sometimes I may feel and act broken, but these are only blips. When I think of everything I have been through and everything I have achieved, I actually feel quite proud of myself. A rarity I can tell you...

But it has also hardened me to everything else. For example I now work around people who have committed a crime and are being punished for it. This has made me lose faith in the system many times over and I also read alot of cases where a rough childhood has been blamed for the offending and I always think "no excuse". Because although I hate to think of myself as a victim, that's what I was all of those years ago. I couldn't do much about it at the time, but now I choose to be something else, to make more of myself, to live my life how I want. It is always a choice. You can let that person ruin your life or you can fight back. That is the sweetest vengence.

Panda Girl 2
Xxxx

*Enter overly dramatic title here*

So I had a pretty good christmas, in fact it was near on perfect! My problem is me. I don't like to be happy and now i'm starting to doubt what I want, well I know what I want but I am questioning whether it will make me truly happy and if so, am I really happy now? I'm so confused: I go from being head over heels to wanting to leave and never come back in the blink of an eye. Today all I have wanted to do was sit in a ball and cry. 

The last few nights I have tried, as hard as I can to remember what my nan said to me on christmas morning when I called her after finding out my granddad had died on christmas eve. It must have really hurt because try as I might I cannot pull up the exact phrasing she used. All I can remember is staring at the "FY" on the "GOOFY" phone asking myself if this was actually happening, was she actually saying these things to me moments after finding out my Granddad had died? I know she was grieving but what she said to me was down right cruel. I just remember saying "ok, I have to go," hanging up and bursting into tears, much to my mum's dismay, she didn't know what to do, I remember her calling my dad to tell him what happened and it was an extremely awkward conversation, with me balling my eyes out in the background. I remember wanting to know why she wasn't comforting me as I badly wanted to comfort her, I still don't know why she was so cruel to me. She is a very selfish being, always turning the situation around to make herself the centre of attention, taking the focus of the fact that my Granddad had passed, she couldn't even let him have that moment. One thing I can never forgive her for.

We still don't talk.

Back to the issues at hand. I am clearly just emotionally retarded. I am scared of feeling too much :( I am just so insecure, its all my problem, I am not normal and its moments like these that I hate myself, feel like it would be easier to just be dead.

Top it all off I have a fear I'm infertile. Go me! I just get better and better -_-

Im going to take a safe assumption that this is a low point.

Much Love

Panda Girl 2
x

Mood music

Up for the fight?

Fall

Now the dark begins to rise

Save your breath, it's far from over

Leave the lost and dead behind

Now's your chance to run for cover

I don't want to change the world

I just wanna leave it colder

Light the fuse and burn it up

Take the path that leads to nowhere

All is lost again

But I'm not giving in

I will not bow

I will not break

I will shut the world away

I will not fall

I will not fade

I will take your breath away

Fall

Watch the end through dying eyes

Now the dark is taking over

Show me where forever dies

Take the fall and run to Heaven

All is lost again

But I'm not giving in

I will not bow

I will not break

I will shut the world away

I will not fall

I will not fade

I will take your breath away

And I'll survive, paranoid

I have lost the will to change

And I am not proud, cold-blooded fake

I will shut the world away

Open your eyes!

I will not bow

I will not break

I will shut the world away

I will not fall

I will not fade

I will take your breath away

And I'll survive; paranoid

I have lost the will to change

And I am not proud, cold-blooded fake

I will shut the world away

Fall!

More mellow?

Take a breath
Hold it in
Start a fight
You won't win

Had enough?
Lets begin
Never mind
I don't care

All in all,
You're no good
You don't cry
Like you should

Let it go
If you could
When love dies
In the end

So I'll find what lies beneath
Your sick, twisted smile
As I lie underneath
Your cold, jaded eyes

Now you turned the tide on me
'Cuz you're so unkind
I will always be here
For the rest of my life

Here we go
Does it hurt?
Say goodbye
To this world

I will not
Be undone
Come to life
It gets worse

All in all,
You're no good
You don't cry
Like you should

I'll be gone
When you fall
Your sad life
Says it all

So I'll find what lies beneath
Your sick, twisted smile
As I lie underneath
Your cold, jaded eyes

Now you turned the tide on me
'Cuz you're so unkind
I will always be here
For the rest of my life

Don't carry me under
You're the devil in disguise

God, sing for the hopeless
I'm the one you left behind

So I'll find what lies beneath
Your sick, twisted smile
As I lie underneath
Your cold, jaded eyes

Now you turned the tide on me
'Cuz you're so unkind
I will always be here
For the rest of my life

I feel like it is coming back. I feel like I want to self harm again. This is so stupid I was doing so well. This is just from stress. Gotta get through it I suppose.

Much Love

Panda Girl 2
xxx

Trust: destined not have any

So I genuinely feel that no matter who I am with, who I fall in love with, I will always have trust issues, maybe not right away, but sooner or later I will find it hard to trust them, because they give me one small reason and I can't recover.

I am not blind to see that this is a two way street.  Because of the way things have happened in the past I find it hard to trust people; with the thing we don't mention, with my mum leaving, with my dad and his girlfriend and with my ex. I've grown up with the people closest to me ending up hurting me, beyond repair, to the point that I can't trust them, I always feel second best and never good enough.

When my mum left, I felt completely abandoned. I spoke about it a few days ago and realised I had tears in my eyes and had to stop myself from crying; my Mum left 12 years ago. 12 years and the emotion is still raw sometimes. When my mum says she has to apologise again for it (usually in conversation) I can't bring myself to say "I forgive you", because I can't, I just say "it's in the past" and hope that she will leave it there because I don't want to hurt her by saying I can't forgive, I just want the awkward moment to pass. But it still hurts, she has said, multiple times, that she didn't leave us (my siblings and I) but I can't help but feel the opposite, she chose a man over us. She chose someone else over her children, we weren't enough for her. It doesn't bother me as much as it used to, I just hardened to not let anyone else hurt me. The two people who have hurt me most have also helped protect me; I know that no one can hurt me as much as they did. If I can live through what they did to me, I can sure as hell work through anything else that gets thrown my way. The only thing that annoys me now about my mum is the stance she has taken on helping me (or my siblings) financially. Don't get me wrong, I don't care about money, I've always been brought up with family values being more important (i just realised the irony...) than money. It just annoys me when I have nothing (there have been weeks where I have not been able to go food shopping) and my mum says she cannot afford to help me, but when I visit, there are TVs in every room, a playstation 3 with a massive (and I mean big) pile of games, an iPad, laptop, computer and the most recent addition; mini helicopters (yes, multiple) for my stepdad to play on. Clearly she could afford to help me, just didn't want to. Which is fine, I have rarely asked for help financially, more the "suffer in silence type" and pretend everything is ok. I just wish she was honest about it. The same with my dad when he says the same thing, but then goes on a holiday her there and everywhere a few times a year. I would never deny my family those luxuries, it's their money, they've earned it so they deserve to treat themselves, just be honest about helping me. 

My dad is another trust thing, when mum left he was all I had. Then his gf came along, nice at first, I really liked her, we spent time together often and got on. Then something seemed to change, I don't know why, she just seem to hate us (my siblings and I) and put on a show for my dad, pretending to be nice ect. and then switching when he wasn't around. She would get us nice presents for christmas and pay for half of our holidays, but I have always felt that it was just for show, for my dad, never because she wanted to make us happy, she wanted to make him happy. When my younger sister said she was going to live with my mum (107 miles away) I ran upstairs crying, his gf came up sat with me on the floor and said "no matter how much I love you kids, you will never be mine". That has been the only moment she has ever been nice to me one on one. When she was vile to us, Dad usually sided with her and more recently told me that he would side with whoever was bitching about it less. So it didn't matter what was done or said. 

My ex well, read previous posts. I was miserable because I didn't and couldn't trust him. There is no relationship without trust. I find it extremely hard to trust again once I feel like it has been broken. It eats away at me. I become someone I am not.

Which brings me to the real reason for this post. I accidentally found something not for my eyes on my bfs computer (I seriously mean accident - I can't work a mac to save my life, I'm not even sure how I got it up, I was trying to find a friends dissertation chapter) and even though it is not cheating or anything like that, it is making me doubt everything. I was so set on moving here to be with him, but this morning when I saw and got upset, I wanted to run, but I had no where to go, my train home is booked specifically for sunday. I was extremely close to just getting the train to my mums. I felt sick to my stomach and just wanted to be anywhere but here. 

I have not felt like this in such a long time, it really is painful. I just feel a mess at the moment. I can feel the metaphorical shutters being slammed down, to not let him in anymore or any further. 

Panda Girl 2
xxx

The Cringe Reel

Usually when I worry about something (money, diss, family, boyfriend) and I'm trying to drift off to sleep my head decides it will make it harder for me to drift off to sleep by playing what I call the Cringe Reel; made up of my most embarrassing, tit like moments, on loop in my head. It gets me so worked up that I'm restless and sleep is impossible. I have been trying to get into this routine of not doing this but I just seem so wide awake when I decide it's time to sleep. I get very worked up I get hot and flustered. 

Just can't wait to finish this masters course. I am so much looking forward to not having to worry about my diss, the hotel, money, time, moving, fitting a personal life into the little amount of time I have in my life right now.  The night I hand my dissertation in will be the best night sleep I get probably since this time last year. This year has been so intense and a lot harder than I anticipated.

At the moment I am trying to focus on what I want after I have finished, a job, to be living with my boyfriend and to be happy :) it is what is getting me through this tough time. Its so nice to get on with his family so well, they are lovely and are so lovely to me, its such a nice change from the last one, I now realise I did not have the problem there, she was just unhinged... I am looking forward to spending more time with them when I next see them, especially his almost sister-in-law who has invited me to possibly go to a wedding fayre! I have never been to one so am curious as to what it is; a posher version of a farmers market maybe? Would be nice to see everything I guess, I have not really thought about what I would want for my wedding since I was a lot younger. 

When I was younger and wanted to be a fashion designer I used to draw different wedding dresses, not always necessarily for me, but the one I always drew for me had a fitted bodice with lace, the lace reaching up to my neckline and part way down my arms and the skirt was an A-line with the lace again. A few of my friends have asked me recently what I would want and to be honest I have absolutely no idea!! Something that flatters my figure, possibly something with an empire line, lace of course, in off-white or ivory with gold highlights. Not sure if I would suit pearls, but if I did I would like warm coloured pearls - gold or rose tinged, with white and gold flowers. I would like a lillies somewhere, even if they represent death (I think) but they were my Granddad's favourite flower (as well as mine, close to roses) and he is very dear to my heart. I can think of nothing worse than getting married in a straight up and down building, want to get married somewhere quirky that has character, is unique and beautiful. I used to want to get married in the church my parents were married in, but I think it would upset a few people :/

Bet you are thinking for someone that has not thought about it there is a lot of detail! Haha, I think that now too, but when people ask me I always feel on the spot! Oh well!

Don't know why I'm talking weddings, not even engaged! I like to think that it will end in marriage at some point, seeing as we have spoken about trying for a baby once we're settled and stuff, would be nice to have the same name I guess, marriage is less of a big deal for me than having a baby. I mean both are a big deal, but with marriage if it doesn't work you can just walk away (not that I plan or want to!) it still hurts but it just affects the two people involved, whereas bringing a child into the world, if it doesn't work, there is no do-over. You are responsible for that little life for the rest of your life, it bonds you with someone in a way nothing else can. If you screw up they suffer too. That scares me.

So now I feel a lot more relaxed and a little sleepy again, think I've tired myself out so am going to watch some trashy TV and fall asleep.

Blogging makes me feel a lot better, even if no one reads me! :P

Much Love

Panda Girl 2
xxxx