Absent Minded

The definition of broken

“Absent Minded”

I am broken

“I” referring not to my body, but to my mind, my soul, the core of my whatever I am

I have a place where I go, when I’m sick and tired of being “me”

Recently this place seems empty

When I was a child my mind and my body were one. I never quietly thought, I was vocal about my ideas and opinions, not caring what people said, thought or acted towards me. Then I began to develop a slight separation between my mind and body, as I became more aware of the people and the world around me. I began to grasp concepts which cracked a small rift between my mind and my body.

This rift allowed my mind to become a separate reality from this reality, from this “real” reality. In my mind I saw trees as homes for fairies, and houses as castles for princesses. I saw cats and dogs as my friends, sticks were wands or spoons, or swords, and my “mind” reality and my “real” reality were separate, but close enough to overlap. 

I was an “absent minded” kid.

At some point I learned from my parents that love was something hard. I learned that love could hurt, that words bit like bullets, and voices wrecked like storms, I learned that yelling felt like earthquakes, and my soul still shudders from the shaking of those thin walls. My mind, my fantasies, the castles I built, the fairies I created, the friends I believed in, all became so gray. My horrible “real” reality began affecting my mind’s reality. So then like the earthquakes I was feeling outside, the rift between my mind and my body crackled away, causing a gaping ravine to separate the two. So that my “mind” reality was harder to access, but more real than my “real” reality.

The more I grew, the more mature I became, and I realized that castles, fairies, and friends weren’t “appropriate” to believe in anymore. So my mind’s reality adapted, it remained my “safe place” but turned more into a prison. The walls were built of commands like “don’t tell anyone” or “No one needs to know” or “everything’s fine now”. And I listened. So my mind became a place of distress and sadness, a gray box where I was sitting alone. The castles had crumbled, the fairies had died, and the animals became feral. There was only one door in and out. And I was told not to open it.

My “real” reality became rapidly worse, as I began eating my stress, and pressuring my friends to give me attention. “Real” people began to notice my chubby habits and I was told to change, they asked me questions like “are you sure you should be eating that?” or suggested I “should really exercise more”. My friends began to grow tired of my clinginess and need for constant love, they began excluding me from parties and not sitting with me at school and telling me I was “annoying”. And every time I was hurt verbally I was screaming in pain in my mind. But those walls that were built remained strong no matter how much my mind was fighting to tear them down.

Eventually my mind had nearly as much as it could take. I hated myself. My mind and my body, my being. I hated all of it. I just wanted it to end, because I was so angry that no one had tried to help me break down those walls. I was in so much pain that I just wanted some one to know. And finally, after three years of that stress my mind built a wrecking ball out of pain and released the emotions I had pent up from my family and friends. I cried all day when I told someone about it.

And that was when I learned I had to talk about what I was feeling. But years of silence didn’t stop easily. I constantly feel the need to retreat to my mind and deal with it by myself. After the walls fell, I was an open book for a time, I trusted so many people, therefore I got even more hurt by so many people.

My mind was still a room, just had windows and an unlocked door. This unlocked door allowed perpetrators to come in and verbally hurt, and abuse my self-esteem. I dealt with this for about a year and a half, until I locked myself away again. This time, my walls were built out of steely cold strategic self-preservation. Only certain people had the keys to come in and spend some time in my thoughts. And some people left me flowers and gifts which made my mind feel pretty. And sometimes my mind felt like sun and my heart felt like a home, and my body felt like air. Then sometimes, people who shouldn’t have had, but did, had keys. Because my mind was emotionally programmed to trust and care about the people I spent my whole life with. 

This was a mistake.

Even though there were flowers, I was also given weeds. These weeds hid behind the sweet smelling words like “I’m saying it because I love you.” “I’m saying it because I don’t want you to embarrass yourself.” “I’m saying it because I care” And then and there I was taught that people who cared for me meant people that made me hate myself. That the highlighting of my incompetence was ok. It was ok because it wasn’t meant to hurt me. That the constant violence that was going on in my head was my problem, and that it’s my fault so I had no reason to speak up for myself. This began the constant war between my body and mind. The constant abuse my mind gives to my body. The weeds infected me. I’m still sick and suffering to this day from comments like that. I look at food and I remember what they said to me. I was constantly hiding the fact that I ate, because I was embarrassed of who I was and what I looked like because they were embarrassed of who I was.

So, I became more and more aware of who I gave keys to. I never wanted to talk about my problems because I was afraid if I let someone else in they would just hurt me. I was afraid if I cared about someone, it just gave them more leverage to affect me. That every pretty flower I saw had a parasitic effect, and every sweet smelling moment was just a mask for someone's true intentions. And I decided I couldn’t do that anymore. That at some point my mind would just break. And it has.

I’m very broken

To this day it’s a force of habit, a subconscious act of self-preservation to not trust anyone. And now, that only a few people have keys to my walls, and there are only a few people I let in, I’ve come to realized how empty I am. How lonely my mind’s reality is.

And now that the real world and my mind’s world have completely separated I find myself in that little room, when my body is in a place that my mind can’t handle. And I feel so alone. And that room feels so empty, and I can kind of see the real reality just pass by me, but I can’t touch it. Cause I’m in my mind. And I can’t escape that.

If I told you that today I’m perfectly happy all the time, I would be lying. But I can tell with confidence that I am better than I have ever been, and maybe one day, I can grow flowers and build castles again. 

Maybe there will be someone who comes along to tear down those walls I so meticulously built. That they will hug my bruises and kiss my black eyes, and when I have flashbacks they'll patiently wait for me to calm down and tell me they love me. That when the dark shadow of anxiety towers over me, they'll help me breathe and be the sun that chases away my sadness and fear. 

Maybe one day I won't have to live in my mind. 

But until that day comes, I may be indefinitely absent minded.

Author's Note

This is a rough time at the moment, but poetry is therapeutic and I just want to be pretty.