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How do I get her outta my body? (Reflections of childhood trauma and alcoholism)

Discussion in 'Physical & Sexual Health' started by Crisalide, Jan 17, 2022.

  1. Crisalide

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2016
    Messages:
    624
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    Location:
    Italy
    Gender:
    Male (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Some people
    (I wish that self-knowledge didn't go along with auto-shink reflections submersed into nervous crises that make me cry in the bathroom of the library instead of studying and being productive. :C Self-knowledge makes you unefficient. It won't make you scrape along relentlessly, weighing on others' mental health with your multigenerational trauma while obtaining an appartent, conventional success at work, at starting a family, at becoming an adult... It makes you bang the head against your own reflection. And loose time...)


    So, today - in the sea of troubles with having a university exam, looking for a rented room, working, thinking about bureaucracy and medical prescriptions, and the like - I was trying to plan my late evening, after an afternoon spent studying, before the next morning when I should wake up early for an appointment... My plan consisted in studying enough hours, while getting out of the library soon enough to buy a bottle of wine before the shops close, because how the hell am I supposed to fall asleep earlier without the sedation of alcohol?, I know that's sedation and not real sleep, it's a heavier sleep with disrupted REM phases, apparently easy but the rest is incomplete, I should take melatonin instead, but alcohol is cheaper and stronger...
    Why, why am I at this point? No, I'm not an alcoholic, I drink only a pair of glasses of red wine as a nightcap, but I realise the sadness of needing a drug to regulate a basic bodily function (sleep. relaxation). I shouldn't depend on it for *that*.
    So, why at this point? I've always had trouble falling asleep, insomnia problems, since I was a kid. Oh, and troubles with other bodily fuctions, with using public toilets for example (I overcame that only recently. About becoming a sort of adult *really* late). My mother was very immature in her parenting skills, and pressured me to overcome those difficulties quickly. My parents have always said that I have trouble following rules in self-regulating my life. That's how bodily functions work for them: sheer rules. So, if I had insomnia: great anxiety-inducing reproaches, because I rolled under the bedsheets waking up my mother (who always liked to sleep with me, in her bed, and asked me to do so even when I was growing up and didn't need her company anymore). If I had constipation, with a physical or psychological cause: it was my fault, I wan't making enough efforts, I was lazy and "just didn't like sitting on a toilet to take a shit" (my pediatrician's textual words...). If I was hot under my winter clothes: false, I am cold so you must be cold too, put that hat back on immediately.
    An invasion. An invasion from my mother into my biological life. She was also physically clingy and at the same time threatening. She used to threaten physical punishment - and sometimes used it. It was relatively rare, but always behind the corner (and the wall of that corner was psychological abuse and emotional extortion). She explicitly said that touching my ass while we were sleeping was relaxing *for her*. It was not sexual, but I was used like a human peluche, an emotional teddy bear. (Well, she wasn't abusive on purpose, but had her own childhood trauma, poor thing)
    My body was my mother's territory, and I had to retreat into my mind. In late adolescence, I finally realised that and wished to figure out how to take back the ownership on my body. At first, I thought: sports. But sports performance gave my body a price, not a value per-se, depending on how far I ran, on how resistant I was... Then I thought: sex. But sex was more about the lover's pleasure than mine. I did a performance of giving pleasure and emotional comfort, the same performance that I did with my mother and that I do now with my clients at the restaurant... (I'm a waiter). So, I thought: tatoos. I like them. But should I modify permanently my body - with signs that maybe I'll regret later - just to feel it mine again, to feel like a whole thing again? Isn't there a healthier way?
    Well, the way I deal with the issue *now* is not healthy for sure: self-injury and drinking. I guess tatoos aren't such a bad option in comparison. I made a huge, huge progress in taking care of this body that feels like an unhospitable land. Now I learned to eat healthy, deal with constipation and take shits in the public toilets all around the city, hehe. But. Managing my primary physical need still occupies a lot of mental space. I rack my head every day about eating right, eating enough, eating at the right time, eating sooo much fiber, more fiber, oh but don't forget meat or anaemia comes back, find a space for meat, there's no space for meat because it's all occupied by fiber, or I won't eat enough fiber... and taking showers, not in the same bathroom session of taking shits, because I would spend too much time in the bathroom and my flatmates would hate me, I have to sign in my organiser when to shower... and. Stay. Healty. Enough to work. Or you won't do a decent work. Or you'll work with stomach cramps. Or life will fall apart. No work, no money. No money, no healthy food. No healthy food, no shits. No shits: sickness, humiliation, death.
    I cannot elevate myself. I should be thinking about a deeper understanding of my university studies to use that knowledge in changing this world for the best. I should be reaching that damned-blessed bachelor's degree. I should have a life, a social life, a sexual life, a gender transition (hahah).
    Instead, I'm the hamster in the wheel. Eat, sleep, piss. It's hard enough to do that. I can't govern my body. This body is not my body. This body is not a body. This thing doesn't function. Or it barely functions. And I'm not actually sick. I'm healthy but constantly worrying about survival. The main enemy of my survival is myself. The main enemy of my body is my mother whose my body is. The main body of myself is my mother.
    How do I get her outta my body?
    How do I go along with my physical nature worryless, hakuna matata, an adult who thinks about the higher steps of Maslow's pyramidal hyerarchy of needs?
    I want to become a proper animal. Something complete, a unity. I want to say: "this body is me".
    I want to stop worrying about not falling asleep because I worry about falling asleep.
    I want to stop *needing* alcohol - just enjoy it - and stop obsessing over vegetables and fruits and bathroom time.
    I want my body.