I'm so hungry

But I don't feel like eating. Actually, I don't deserve to eat. It's too much of a luxury for me. I don't even deserve to breathe, if we're really getting down to it. But honestly, dying's too good for me too. God, please, will I ever stop believing that I am worth less than nothing?

Wrong.

This is why I should get my shit together. This has nothing to do with being alone; this is me being the wreck that I always am. God Tara, suck it up.

9 posts in about an hour.

This is why I shouldn't be left alone.

I'm pretty sure that's actually what I'm waiting for.

You to hate me. I'm waiting for that one day when I just say one thing too far, when I'm just a little too pathetic or pathetic too often and you decide you're done. And I'll lose the greatest person who chose to be a part of my life all because I couldn't hold my shit together. That's what I'm waiting for. And then you'll end up happy while I'll be the wreck I always was, and the world will make sense again. It will just make sense in a much sadder, much more hopeless way.

I want you to hate me.

Because by all my accounts, you certainly should. But you don't, and I can't for the life of me understand why.

I wish I could play music while I type this.

I would feel a whole lot less lonely then. But I can't because my computer is in my dorm room instead of yours and I can't go get it because I don't have the keys to get back in. So I'm typing on my iPad, but I can't have YouTube and blogger open at once because YouTube is an app instead of a website, and apps and the Internet don't work at the same time. And there was a point where I could have just turned on your computer and used that, but I can't because I fucked up and now you can't trust me and it's my own damn fault. And the truth is, I really didn't mean it. God, I wish I had been snooping for something incriminating, some breach of trust. Then I would have felt sneaky and bad about it from the beginning, and I either wouldn't have done it or I would have felt like I deserved the aftermath. No, I had to be vain and curious and see if you were actually reading this blog and the reason was so stupid, I didn't even think about the fact that the snooping was wrong. It didn't feel wrong, it felt silly. And then when I found something I almost threw up just from the shock of it, and now that you don't trust me because of it it feels undeserved because in my head it was silly. I know it wasn't right and I know you have every right not to trust me; I actually don't blame you. And it upsets me not because I feel like you changing your password so I can't snoop anymore means you have something to hide, but because it means you don't trust me to say I won't snoop and mean it. And because I fucked up because I was careless, and now you can't trust me when you should be able to trust me and I feel guilty and hurt and dirty and untrustworthy and that wasn't a conscious choice, it was just my instinct. So I didn't even make a bad choice, I'm just a bad person. And it sucks, because I want to give you that privacy and I want you to trust me, but you don't. And you still go on my computer and you should have broken my trust as much as I broke yours by going through my stupid Facebook messages, but I decided it wasn't that big of a deal, because all I would need to do, if I wanted you to stop, was tell you that it wasn't ok. And I trusted that you would have stopped. But apparently you don't feel the same way about me, and that's not because of you that's because of me. I know I'm curious and nosy but I also thought that my word meant something, but apparently not in comparison to those things. And I get it; I really do. I dot think you should give me back your password, since it obviously makes you uncomfortable. I just wish it didn't, or at least that I could agree that I deserved the punishment. And this sounds bitter and passive aggressive, and it is, but it's not aimed at you, it's aimed at myself. You're doing the right thing, I'm the one who fucked up. I just wish for once, I could have done something right.

I hate you sometimes.

I hate you because before you, I knew I was fucked up. And I knew that I would fuck up everyone around me. So I made a decision a long time ago that I didn't want kids because I would fuck them up, and I don't want to put a child through that. And I knew it was for the best and I was fine with it, knowing I was doing better by any future children I might have had by simply not having them. But you had to come around and want kids and maybe even a future with me. And you had to make me happy enough that I want a future with you, and now maybe I want that future where we can be together and have kids and we can all be happy. But the problem is I'm still fucked up, and so I don't know that that happy future exists. But now thanks to you, I want it anyway. And worse, you want it too, so once again, it's not just me who's going to be disappointed.

I'm posting a lot tonight.

But I'm alone and all these thoughts running through my head are more upsetting when they stay there. So you get to hear every one because I want to survive a couple of hours by myself.

I know I said that some of these entries may be happy.

But truth is I only really seem to blog when I'm upset. So sorry guys, you don't get happy.

Sometimes I want to feel things.

Sometimes I want to be numb. But it isn't that I can't make up my mind; it just seems I want the opposite of whatever I've got.

Sometime I wish you left when you meant to.

Because then I wouldnt have to hurt. I wouldn't have to feel these things because they'd still be bottled up, buried where they couldnt hurt me. I measure have been perfectly happy living my pointless, one goal to the next and hope to god you die young existence. Well, not happy; I didn't let myself feel really anything then. But not unhappy either. Ignorance is bliss after all. And back then I didnt know how fucked up I really was. I had an inkling, but it was buried so deeply it didn't warrant consideration. I didnt have these nights; I didn't feel this pain. Or maybe the night that would have caused you to leave would have caused me to feel this pain anyway, but the thing is I wouldn't have needed to get better. I wouldn't have even needed to get through it. I get through it for you; I want to get better because of you, because I don't want you to miss out on your life because I'm busy missing out on mine. If you had left I wouldn't need to. If I fell apart there wouldn't have been anyone who cared around to watch it. I could have ignored this for the rest of my life if you had just left when you wanted to, and you wouldn't have had to deal with skipping hanging with your friends because of me. For any reason. I want to fix these things because I hate the fact that I am ruining your life. But they aren't easy to fix, and I'm hurting you in the meantime.

I am alone.

I am alone and upset, and I can't handle being alone right now. I'm losing my mind. I just keep beating myself up for every little thing and I can't shake it when there is no one here to remind me that sometimes I'm a good person. Realistically, I know I am, but everything right now is telling me that really, I'm not. And I don't know how to stop listening.

I feel sad.

For no reason, really. I just feel sad.

So I think I know why I love sex.

It's almost like I'm trying to get back what I lost. When I was raped, the ability to see, feel sex as something coming from a caring place, from love, was lost to me. The only feelings I can feel in regards to sex are those that identity with rape. Lust? Sure. power? Of course. Pure carnal satisfaction? Duh. All those can identify with rape. I enjoy sex, I love it - but I think the reason for my almost insatiable sex drive isn't love for the pleasure I get from sex, but this...quest, almost, of trying to recover the ability to have sex that could be love. As if every time I have sex, there's a chance to fix what he broke. A hunger to get that bit of feeling, of love back into my life. I'm enjoying the sex in the meantime, but really, even it if means I do regain the sex drive of a normal girl, I want to be able to feel during sex.

Thank you.

Yes you. Thank you. For everything you do for me everyday. For being there, for taking care of me, for making me so goddamn happy every day, for loving me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm grateful for every day I have you.

I'm pretty sure all I'm good for is sex.

That's why I like it so much. I enjoy it, and I'm actually good for something. Everybody wins. Sex=point to my pointless existence.

I hate myself.

When I'm in a bad mood, at least. i don't know what's wrong with me, but i want it to go away. Please. i hate the person i become - that I'm reduced to.

Why does life suck?

Seriously. I don't know why I'm here. Nobody needs me. Sad, isn't it?

Still thinking about it.

Can't it go away for just a little while? Can't I just think about nothing?

Re-reading my posts

I sound like a crazy person. Everything is so overdramatic and so over-exaggerated. That isn't to say I was making things up; that is exactly how I felt at the time. I'm just realizing how much my feelings do change when I'm having a bad week. Admittedly, the past couple of weeks had been really bad, some of the worst in a while. I'd known that my feelings were radically different during bad weeks, but some of these posts still surprise me. For example, when I allude to contemplating suicide. That is hardly the norm, and is actually normally even hard for me to comprehend - I can't wrap my head around feeling down enough, desperate enough to even consider it a viable option - yet I know that when I feel so depressed, it honestly does make sense to me. But I can't understand those feelings or where they are coming from when I'm not having a bad day.
When I say all my feelings seem overdramatic and over-exaggerated, it's because when I feel depressed, all those feelings become so much bigger and deeper and all-encompassing. I feel and think in a way that is vastly different from when I'm not in a bad mood. My spectrum of feelings becomes so much more limited as to what types of emotions I can feel, but it makes up for it with depth that I could drown in. All the hopelessness... Admittedly, I don't have a guiding purpose to my life like most people do - I thought it was journalism, my future career, but that seems so hollow, and I don't think that's really it. Is it a part of my life? Yes. My purpose? No. When I feel happy - when I'm not depressed - it just makes me feel like I'm missing something that I haven't discovered yet, or that I left behind. It makes me think I need to get back into music or bike riding or begin volunteering, find something that could give me purpose. When I am depressed, it feels less like something is missing, and more like a lack of purpose for even existing. The difference in outlook is staggering.
The same is true of my relationship with Tray. I love him, all the time. That is not exaggerated. What is exaggerated is how, when I'm depressed, I romanticize everything. In particular, I'm thinking of when I said "I sometimes feel like I don't know how either of us was a whole person without the other." Tray is as familiar and as normal to be around as my shadow; that doesn't feel like an exaggeration. Having him around is so completely normal, no matter when or what I'm doing. However, we were certainly both whole people without each other; we still are. When I'm happy, I love Tray and I am closer to him than anybody, but when I'm depressed, he often feels like the only consistently good thing in my life and the only thing left to hang on to. It makes it as easy to over-exaggerate those feelings as much as the hopeless and suicidal feelings.
I'd known from remembering or re-reading conversations that I think and feel entirely differently when I'm depressed, but when I'm talking to someone else I at least sound normal, as if I'm translating. This blog....I've written these posts at some my lowest points, without censoring or questioning my thoughts or feelings. I'm just now realizing how differently I see the world depending on my mood. It scares me.

I cried.

http://reclaimyourvoice.tumblr.com/post/7797574660

I read this list, and I cried. I've read stuff like this before, but never has one affected me so deeply. It was so immensely comforting. Everything you read says "You aren't to blame. You aren't the only one," but this list seemed to MEAN it. I can't even explain it. Just that the last three sentences made me feel both more broken and more ok than anything else ever has.

This may seem strange to find on a blog about dealing with rape

but I love BDSM. Bondage, submission, spanking, choking, slapping...even rape role-play. There is something so empowering about taking back something that hurt me so much. Controlling it myself. Making it mine. Taking what was used to make me so powerless and now using it to be in charge -- if, when, with whom, how long, how hard. It's empowering. It's laughing in the face of everything that's hurt me, saying "I'm stronger than you thought I was. You haven't broken me, and you won't. I'm in charge, and I can do this. I can do anything."

I'm waiting for him to hurt me.

Everyone leaves, and when they do, it hurts. Usually, it isn't just the leaving; they do something to hurt you too. That's what I'm waiting for. Everything I've known before tells me that someday, he'll hurt me. We've known for a while that Tray someday wants kids and a family; I don't. I didn't even want to get married, but he's shown me that maybe marriage can be different than what I thought. We've started talking about how maybe this isn't a temporary thing, and how, even hough he knows its still far off and nothing is for sure, he hopes to marry me someday. We've talked about the idea that if we make it through college that might happen.  Yet as we get more and more serious, I feel more and more like I'm just waiting for him to hurt me. I trust him completely, but I don't feel like I trust him not to get tired of me, or that he won't want something better someday. He deserves someone better. I'm just waiting for him to realize that.

I feel empty after sex.

I know sometimes, sex is just sex. That's how it started out between me and Tray. But it wasn't long before it became more than just sex. It matters that the sex is with him. I trust him not to hurt me, and there is some sort of connection. But at the same time, it feels more like familiarity than love. I love Tray, and he loves me, but I don't feel that in the sex. Aren't you supposed to? Everything about sex to me is just sex -- or, at the very least, not love. And I love sex. Tray and I have great sex. And during and after I feel great and alive and the sex itself is amazing and afterwards I'm practically euphoric, but then that fades and I feel empty. As if it was all a product of the moment, and it really meant nothing. And I can't get past this feeling that sex and love have to be two separate things, even when the person you're having sex with is someone you love.

I want to feel safe.

I want to feel happy. I want to feel loved even when I'm days into a funk and I can tell that everyone wants me to just snap out of it. I want to feel like everything I've gone through doesn't make me a bad person. I want to feel like I'm not the guilty one. I want to feel like I'm not an inconvenience. I want to feel like I'm not wrong. I want to feel like this hasn't broken me. I want to feel like maybe I can come out of this a better person. I want to feel like all the pain I've gone through hasn't been for nothing. I want to feel like things will get easier. Maybe then I can feel safe.

I don't know of anyone else.

I think that's why I can't stop thinking about it. Thinking and reading and writing about it. I don't know anyone else who has been through this. Anyone who can say "you can overcome this. It isn't who you are." anyone who can tell me they understand, that they feel that way too. Anyone who can tell me, from the same place as me, that it's not my fault. That I'm not to blame. That I can let go of the self hate and the guilt and the "I should have"s. I need someone who understands to tell me that and mean it. Maybe then I'll be able to believe it.

I have survivor's guilt.

Which is really dumb because no one died. I just...whenever I do something cool, something I'm lucky to be able to do - specifically, my college had a formal at an awesome loft place in downtown Chicago - and I realized how few people will get the chance to do something like that. And I felt privileged. But not in a good "I'm so lucky to be able to have this experience" way. But in a "God, I don't deserve this at all" way. In a "someone who didn't do this awful thing that I (had happen to me?) (really didn't do?) allowed to happen...actually deserves this" kind of way. It makes it really hard to enjoy things, when you feel guilty for even being there. And you know, it's weird that I feel this way. Because I would never tell anyone else who'd been raped, assaulted, had almost any sort of hardship that they didn't deserve something because it had happened. So I don't know why I don't deserve it. I can tell you I don't though. I told my friend that I don't feel like my life has meaning. He responded by insisting every life has meaning. Which I 150% agree with (and have told my friend more than once when she was feeling particularly close to the edge)....but I still can't say that mine does. Why?

I don't know why I do this, but when I get bored I think about the rape.

I think it's just always hiding there. And every time I get bored or try not to think about something (Caylee) and think about something else (anything), my mind goes to the rape. Not like a flashback though - I'm lucky, I don't really get those - .....but I'm afraid it's becoming who I am. Because I feel like it's all I think about anymore. It's taking over. The guilt, the blame, the shame, the feeling like I'm doing something wrong because I dare to even acknowledge it. I feel dirty. I feel like I need to hide what I'm doing or I'll get in trouble. I feel like lately - as I've realized just how shut down I had become, and how I based everything I cared about on goals that existed simply because I needed something to get through, as I've realized how utterly without point my life had become - I feel like I've adopted the rape as my point. Not as my point, but as a goal - to fix myself, to overcome it. But when it's all I have it becomes overwhelming. And I don't know if this is because I have nothing else or if this is because it is too much and it would take over no matter what. But I feel like it's always there.

I get lonely sometimes.

Yup. That's all. When I'm alone I get lonely. Sometimes when I'm with people. It's a really empty lonely though, because it's an "I feel lonely without her" and so it's sad too, not just lonely. It just makes me want to cry and scream and hit someone because it isn't fair and then curl in a ball and sob. It's heavy.

I really do consider myself lucky.

I have beautiful people in my life. (I'm actually tearing up thinking about it.) I have the most wonderful friends: the boy, who at this point is my life; my best friend who feels like my sister, who deals with so many of the same feelings of worthlessness and who can't see what an amazing gift she is to those around her; my best friend who I can be carefree with, not because she even knows I have these feelings but because we know each other well enough that we instinctively understand each other, but all we ever are is silly; my friend who acts as my therapist and listens to me whine about whatever and gives me advice, and a kick in the pants, whenever I need it. My family is amazing; we have our issues like anyone else, but they do mean the world to me. My grandma is one of the most important people in my life; I love her dearly. My mother, as stubborn and argumentative as we both are, is someone I admire greatly and who I don't dread (most of the time) to grow up to be. My father is always there for me, and, even though I feel like our relationship almost revolves around sports, having that is not only enough, but exactly what I need. I never feel alone when I'm with my aunts; I'm like one of the sisters. My dogs have the most amazing personalities and can make me smile no matter what. These are the people I have to live for. 

Stuck.

The worst part is feeling like I don't have anything to live for. Not because it hurts; hardly. I've accepted it. Its just so hard to live with. When everything seems pointless, how do you find the motivation to do anything? For stuff that us easy and instant-gratification, I don't have much of a problem. But for anything that requires effort, it always seems so pointless. Sometimes simply being told I have to do it is enough, if I'm not too down usually don't bother to wonder why I should bother doing it. Having someone rely on it, where I don't want to let them down, is about the only way to actually convince me to put in effort anymore. Just living up to expectations. Really, sometimes I feel as if I only exist through other people's expectations for me.

This is where Tray comes in.

I feel needed again. I feel happy again. We get along so well. I enjoy every moment I spend with him; in eight months I haven't ever gotten tired of him. And he's stuck around through all of this, which would have completely justified leaving. Even more, he's put up with every annoying habit I have (believe me, there are a lot). I can't even say we have a connection -- we get along to a point that I sometimes feel like I don't know how either of us was a whole person without the other. He makes me feel like I can still find - like I still have - meaning and purpose in my life. I don't feel so empty when I'm with him. The love that I thought I'd lost the capacity to feel, I feel it for him. I thought that Caylee left a hole that nothing, no one could ever fill. There will always be a hole; she will always have her place. But he's showed me that my whole heart isn't a hole -- there's still part of it left. He tells me that I make his life better. I don't understand how I possibly could, but I believe him. He means so much to me; if I can make his life better just by being here, that's enough to make me feel at least like I have a reason to keep breathing and maybe do a little more than just enjoy the time I've had.

I do miss her though.

I miscarried at about 5 weeks. I was 15; I was in no way ready to have a baby. But I wanted her anyway. I didn't set out to have a kid; I didn't want A kid. I wanted her. I felt different when I was pregnant. I missed my period, and I'd had scares before, but about a week or two in, I knew this was different. You know how they say pregnant women glow? I felt like I was glowing. Like my heart was suddenly so happy I turned into a living night light. I could feel it. And I loved her. As soon as I felt her I loved her, and I knew in that second she mattered more to me than anyone or anything else in my life. I would have done anything for her. She became my purpose for living. Not that she took over it, but that as soon as I felt her I recognized that she was the greatest thing I could ever hope to achieve; she was what I was living for. So when I lost her, she took that with her. I still miss her, so, so much. Some days it feels hard to breathe knowing that I'm living without her. I feel like I have no more motivation to live; she was it. She was the reason I was alive. Now she's gone. I don't know which is worse - missing her, or the void she left behind.

I'm sometimes ok.

Every night is not a battle. Every moment of my life is not haunted. I actually consider myself a happy person. When I think of my life, I think of the happy times. I try to appreciate small gestures, simple beauty, everyday moments. Most of the time, I am happy. I can't say that I feel like my life is worth living by any measure; I can't say that I am afraid of or dread dying, or that I haven't thought of ending it myself.  However, I have enjoyed the time I've had, and most of the time I plan on enjoying the rest of the time I'm given. I enjoy my life. I have days, nights, weeks when I worry about nothing more than any college student (probably less). Yet these nights do creep up, when something triggers one issue or the other and the feelings overwhelm me. This blog will probably reflect that. It will sometimes be about the rape; it will sometimes be about Caylee. Sometimes it may be my feelings during an episode, when I am absorbed in grief or when I believe every horrible thing I could possibly think about myself. Sometimes it will be me trying to figure out these feelings, and, more importantly, how to put them to rest. This blog may seem completely fractured. It will, I'm sure, be updated sporadically,  probably at night since that's when the thinking is usually the worst. I'm hoping it will show or lead to progress; however, I'm starting it because I've been getting worse and worse and so it might reflect that instead. But I'm trying to move on with my life, and I'm trying to be the person that Tray wants me to be. So that's what I'm hoping to find.

This is for those nights

when it's hard to think. Those nights when everything makes me think of her. Or when the world is crashing in and I want to let it crush me because I'm worthless and I still feel like it's my fault and I deserve this. This is for those nights when my entire existence feels reduced to a single event, whichever one it may be. Even though the same night started everything, the two almost never overlap. They are so fundamentally different that they never could. One is the loss of the most important person in my life, as well as the most important this I could ever aspire to do with my life. It's mourning an insurmountable loss. The other is the robbery of my worth as a person. He didn't respect me, and everything he did reinforces the idea in my mind that I am as worthless as he thought I was when he thought my feelings, my ability to chose didn't matter. One immobilizes me with grief that makes life seem unlivable; one berates me until I don't feel worthy to live. They are not and never will be the same.

I'm doing this for a guy.

How cliché. I already sound like an idiot. But this guy is my best friend. He is there for me every step of the way. He's the one who listened, and who kept listening. And that's pretty big, because most people, when you tell them - hell, any of it - they listen, and they let you say what happened, and then they are so clearly uncomfortable that you don't even want to talk about it again. But he listened, and he let me say everything I needed to say and he let me feel what I needed to feel. He let me let my guard down and show him these feelings that I wouldn't always even admit to myself. And he still does, every time. Even though that was eight months ago and he said he couldn't deal with another broken girl, he's still here. He says I'm not broken. He believes in me. And what he wants is for me to be better. So I'm going to be. I'm doing this for him. Because I stopped caring a long time ago about doing anything for me; I'm not worth the effort. But he, well, he is.