LITMIR.BIZ

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like this. I feel guilty and embarrassed about my behaviour.

      I never expected my life to be like this. I don’t understand why I have succumbed to living a life that’s enveloped by fear, distress and sadness. I’m powerless.

      Anxiety controls me.

      Destroys me.

      How many times do I have to beg to die just to escape this torture?

      I hate the new house. I can’t believe I have to go there. What if someone needs me and they don’t know where I am? It’s a nice house but I don’t want it. I can’t do it. I can’t move.

      I’ve been driving past the new house every chance I get sometimes parking outside it for hours at a time. I’m trying to imagine that that is my home. The place where I live. But it just makes me cry.

      I want to die.

       3^rd October

      There was no panic and no screaming. I still feel low, a little depressed maybe but I managed to control myself and even be a little helpful.

      Leanne did most of the packing and unpacking for me because I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I could feel the anxiety in my chest and I waited for it to manifest. But it didn’t. Perhaps the medication is working and is providing the relief I need to get through the day. Or perhaps, I’m beginning to recover from whatever this is.

       4^th October

      I’ve been to see the psychologist. I’ve seen a few counsellors to find out why I get anxious so I’m not holding much hope.

      I arrived at precisely the right time to begin the session and Joan, the psychologist, showed me to the correct chair in her small home office. She has the big comfy chair!! Then with a notepad and pencil in hand she asked me what had brought me to see her.

      I started with “I had a very normal life” then without warning the sewerage of my life came spewing out like a pipe had broken. I told her about my childhood and how it was to grow up in my family. She was interested to know more about my dad but there’s other stuff that needs to be dealt with so I can just get through ‘now’ so I think she’s waiting until next time.

      I’m not sure I agree with this “it’s all in your childhood” psychology. At the end of the session Joan told me that she thinks I have control issues. She says they probably developed in my childhood when I felt unsafe and now they’re not working for me anymore. That’s what’s creating the anxiety she says.

       11^th October

      I took a photo of me with my mum and dad from when I was a baby to show Joan in my visit today. Joan decided to ask me about my father and that’s when the tears started to well in my eyes. I’m not sure what sparked them but I couldn’t even bear to think about him. I looked at the photo but it had become impossible to hold so I threw it on the floor. It landed face up forcing me to maintain contact with the faces looking back. I couldn’t pick it up and left it lying discarded on the carpet for the entire session.

      Joan wasn’t convinced that I didn’t have any issues with my father and she left the photo on the floor where it landed. “What do you think your father thought about the attack you suffered?” she asked carefully.

      “I don’t think my father ever knew about it” I told her.

      He certainly didn’t know about the ongoing abuse when I was a teenager. No one knew about that. But I’m not sure whether mum told him about the man who came to the door. Mum and dad were beyond talking, so it was unlikely.

      Mum had applied for legal custody of my brother and I (the two youngest children) because she didn’t like the way dad disciplined us. I think mum was mad at dad for all the stuff he put her and the older kids through. She had also obtained a legal separation from him even though they still lived in the same house.

      Joan can’t believe mum wouldn’t tell dad, regardless of the state of their relationship.

      “It doesn’t surprise me” I told her.

      Joan wants to know if my mum was afraid of my dad, but I don’t think she was. She was past being afraid of him. I think she was angry with him more than anything else.

      “Were you afraid of your dad?” asked Joan.

      I looked back to the photo of my family on the floor and tried to find some way to divert Joan’s attention onto something else but I can’t clear my head. I couldn’t answer her. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out what my mind could see but no matter how hard I squeezed, I could still see it.

      The tears that I hoped to hold behind my eyelids started to escape and dribbled down my cheeks. I couldn’t answer Joan’s question and I wasn’t even sure that if I opened my mouth that any words would come out. I could feel them in my chest but I was mute.

      I blinked and saw Joan waiting patiently in her chair. She expected an answer but nothing about her displayed any impatience. My face was wet, my nose was running uncontrollably and I didn’t care. I hoped Joan didn’t care either but she slid a box of tissues towards me so I think maybe she did.

      I took a tissue from the box and blew my nose. I was still in her small office. I could only look at the tissue in my hand and fiddle with its corner between my thumb and finger.

      I think Joan was worried about me because she asked if I was okay. I nodded, still mute. I tried to focus on the tissue as I squeezed it down into my fist. I closed my eyes again because they stung.

       My father is sitting at the kitchen table with a half empty glass of beer in one hand and a smoking cigarette lies idly in the ash tray. His dinner is only half eaten and the plate has been pushed away into the centre of the table with the knife and fork he had used thrown down carelessly. He’s finished his meal.

       The television is turned up too loud in the adjoining room as the newsreader passes on information. I’m about seven years old and we children are restless as the day comes to a close and the inevitable squabble about who will wash and who will dry dishes begins. We move around our father like skittish foals clearing the table and trying our best to stay outside an arm’s length.

       My mother tells us to be quiet and get on with job but we have no hot water because the briquette hot water service hasn’t been lit. We’ve run out of briquettes and my mother can’t afford any more until she gets paid. Unless someone goes outside to collect sticks from the yard there won’t be any hot water for the dishes or for bathing tonight.

       While we wait for the kettle to boil and provide the hot water we need, the volume of our voices rise. Suddenly aroused from a contemplative state my father yells at my mother. “Tell them to shut up.”

       He can’t hear the news.

       My mother tells us wearily to stop fighting and get on with the job. We stop complaining and silently continue our work with the dishes, our voices fading into silence. We’re sulking now. The water is only tepid and the kettle has been put back on to boil. The television is still way too loud, yet our silence is louder.

       There is no time after the dishes are done to watch TV. My mother, who has been washing clothes and hanging them outside in the dark, tells us to get ready for bed. She has bought in some sticks she collected and has lit the hot water service to try to warm up some water for the bath. We manage to run a couple of inches of warm water into the bath and tonight I get to get in first, a rare privilege. I quickly soap myself up and rinse off by lying down in the bath and rolling over.

       The bathroom smells of kerosene from the heater my mother used to warm the house. There is black mould growing around the tub that I try not to touch. I wish that black stuff wasn’t there and I carefully climb out of the tub avoiding touching the edges. I pick up a worn towel from a pile on the floor. They’re all damp so I just take the top one and rub my wet

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