Three A.M.

I've had 459 views on my blog and perhaps two comments. Rather disproportionate, eh?

It's nearly three a.m. I was fairly convinced that Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery was the series of books in which I'd read about the heroine being awake and alone with doubts and uncertainties at three in the morning, and how it's an evil, dreadful hour.

Well, indeed it is.

As I said, I was fairly convinced, and I was going to quote the book, but a Google search returned nothing, which must mean that I'm outside my head and am completely wrong. (Or, once again, Google fails. Not that it happens often. I would never insinuate such a thing.)

I hate staying up late alone. Everyone else fell asleep some time ago, and I hate being the last to fall asleep. I'm not entirely sure why. I'm a cowardly critter. I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of every noise I hear outside my house because I'm entirely convinced that it means the sky is falling. I've never, ever felt completely secure. And I've never, ever felt completely confident that I know what I'm doing or where I'm going.

This is what I think about at three a.m.

I'm a control freak. I'm not ashamed to admit it. It's just something that I am. I'm aware, and I'm working on being less controlling. Not an easy task, considering it's something that's dug down deep beneath my skin. For the most part, these days I feel like I'm completely out of control. It's funny (perhaps funny is a poor choice of wording) because my therapist once said as much. I'm a codependent control freak, and I find my happiness in putting everyone else's needs ahead of my own. I have a problem telling someone no if I really feel that saying no might hurt that person, even if saying yes hurts me. I worry about everyone else constantly. I worry about what everyone else thinks... to an extent, I suppose. I may say I don't care, but I do, I just pretend not to care. I ignore it, or else I simply cannot function.

Anyway, after the birth of my second child, I fell apart. I went crazy. I cried constantly for no reason. I hated existence. Sometimes, I'd pick up my son, and it wouldn't even feel like I was holding my own child. Disassociative disorder, I believe my therapist called it. Depersonalization. A defense mechanism.

In other words, I turned into a nut job.

My therapist said it was as if I had been holding it together for all that time, struggling to balance everything, struggling to keep everyone happy, and having Christopher tipped the scales, so to speak. I lost balance. I lost control. Having two children is a massive change from having one. I was no longer able to pretend like I had it all together. I feel like I've been fighting since then to get it back. I would fluctuate rapidly between two extremes. On one end, I would be in the depths of despair, quite literally hating existence and wishing I could disappear. Then, for a moment, the clouds would clear, and I would hate myself. Loathe myself. Despise myself. In the worst possible way. I saw it as a weakness. Maybe a weakness I could beat out of myself.

I suppose I did. My therapist made significant headway and then switched to a different office... one that did not accept my insurance. So I gave up on therapy and assumed I could work this out myself.

I guess it turns out that I'm wrong.

I had a moment tonight. One of those moments where time seems to stop, and I wonder who I am, and what I'm doing, and why I'm here, and I haven't been able to pull it back together since.

Long story short, I'm a mess.

My entire life is a mess.

In a perfect world, this blog would end on a perfect note. I'd have something cute and funny and positive to say, and tomorrow everything would be better.

Tomorrow will be better, but only because I'll have fallen asleep (and hopefully successfully avoided any nightmares) and forgotten the whole thing. Every day is like having a reset button. My short term memory is terrible. I do a lot of pretending and forgetting and ignoring, and boy oh boy, is it exhausting.

I'm exhausted.

I'm so. SO. SO. Tired. Tired of fighting to be seen as strong. Tired of fighting not to cry. Tired of fighting to look okay. I'm just tired, tired, tired.

"Buuuut Lexy, you're DOING it wrong! You sposed to relying on Jehovah and throwing your burdens on him, doofusface!" (I hope you read that in a stupid voice, cuz I wrote it in a stupid voice.)

Here's my answer to that obvious remark. Yeah, I'm working on it. But when you've been told your entire life that you suck at life and that you can't do anything right and that you're not worth anything, you start to believe it. And that takes a lot of undoing to get undone.

So yeah. I'm working on it.

Alone.

Tonight is just one of those nights that forever just feels like a really, really, really, really long time.

I can't even write anymore. And I'm probably going to regret posting this. But what am I if not brutally honest, right?

Signing off,
Alex.Is