fear of the clock

TRIGGER WARNING: Content NSFW and for people who have abusive pasts

It’s birthday month. For me, birthdays, since 1986, lasts from August 8 to August 18, and it’s not something I can change.

I never change it, though, and I don’t know why. Instead I just celebrate two birthdays.

My panic attacks have been getting worse. I like to relate this to my ‘fear of the clock’ but I am not sure. It just occurred to me that I have never liked to get my nails done- that feminine act of sitting in front of someone for a really long time- I’ve always preferred to do it myself.

I realised this when I was with my aunt the other day. She has always tried to live her life perfectly- following all the rules. I think this is the reason she dislikes me- I’ve decided to follow none of the rules, and I don’t seem to be apologetic about them.

I think this is the reason I hate being labelled. The tight grip of my family, the demented way in which I had to perform a Self. THERE IS NO SEPARATE SELF, my family seemed to bellow.

I’m as sick as they come. I think people close to me are going to die. I peep through the window when they’re home 1 minute late, I used to sleep on the floorboard outside my parents room in case they died in the night. Why do I think that?

If everyone I am close to is going to to die, then wouldn’t that make me alone in the world?

I had hardened my heart to this reality. I had been abused, too, at a young age. I guess for a long time I had accepted this- not the abuse, but the fact that things were never going to go well for me. In the words of my therapist, I had lived in a basement, a dark place, literally because that was all my parents could afford as immigrants, but I also had a dark place inside of me.

And I liked to keep myself there.

The work I’ve had to do over a lifetime is to get myself out of there. This obsession that I am not loved, liked or appreciated, which becomes a recurring cycle all by itself.

I experience Love as Tragedy. We’ll give you everything, but you are ours. You can never leave. You will never leave.

My grandma expects perfection. She does/did in all her children. My aunt never saw me. For some reason they were also touching me, caressing my hair without my permission, putting an arm around me without consent…

Her obsession of me and big cats: Sending me pictures of cats and tigers,

This is why I have been vigilant for so long in my life.

That kind of hyper-arousal doesn’t help anybody. The cauterized heart doesn’t help anybody. And if you had my experience with women, you probably wouldn’t trust them, either.

Except my therapist is trying really hard for me to trust her. She wants me to know that our relationship isn’t just about money, that something about us has connection. I don’t want that to be the case. That is one scary thing to acknowledge. Yet, when she posed the possibility that she could die, I became depressed.