Geneviève Emmanuelle "Gen" Hart-Campbell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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muserevival2017-06-05 09:04 pm
asskickingblahniks) wrote in muserevival2017-06-05 09:04 pm
Entry tags:
146.3. Private Journal
Going Back
It took a long time for me to believe that going to therapy wasn't evidence of how much of a failure I was. Failure as sister, a wife, a mother, a human. I thought I hated myself when I gave up my baby for adopted all those years ago, but this was worse. I didn't understand why I kept fucking up and hurting the people I love more than life itself. There is no life without any of them. So, why was I such a coward and ran away?
Because running was easy. Running, I could control. Running wasn't killing my brother with cancer, killing my child to suicide, crippling my husband with an illness I couldn't spell, let alone understand. Running wasn't seeing the disappointed Facebook posts from my daughter, not feeling any connection there to being her mother. How was I supposed to just know that? I couldn't find words to explain it. Not when I had already done it. I accepted my son as my own, and loved him so much it hurt every time I saw tears in his eyes. Tears I knew a cuddle and words would never be able to heal. All his pain, how so very broken and damaged he is, I still loved him. He loved me back. He called me mom. He wanted my arms around him, he wanted to hear that I loved him. I failed him.
How was she was supposed to accept I didn't know how to be a mother to her when I wanted to be to another child who didn't even come from my own genes? Genes never matter. They didn't matter! Then all of a sudden they mattered? Why did they suddenly matter? Or was it because she terrified me? She terrified me because she reminded me of that time back then I wanted to leave in the past? She reminded me of the guilt, of the pain. She reminded me of them taking her from my arms, and then never seeing her again. But I chose that. I chose it, and I know I could never have been the mother to her then that she needed. I didn't even know how to care for myself, and I was ashamed. All I wanted was my mom, but she wasn't there to help me. So I gave up my daughter, because I thought I could never get it right without Mom helping me.
Then they were telling me I could lose my brother too? The one person who had been there for me, no matter what. Who had never judged me, no matter how much I screwed up. We vowed to conquer the world together, and we did it. We dreamed our way right to the top. He couldn't be taken from me. He couldn't. Cancer too Mom, it couldn't have Paris too.
The world didn't listen. It didn't slow it down. He began to look more and more sick. More and like he was dying. He was losing weight, and his eyes lost their light. Just like Justin's whenever his life was hanging by a mere thread. I didn't know what to say to him. There were no words to be able to reassure someone against cancer. They were false and empty, and Paris had never liked false an empty. He liked real and honest. But all I had that was true honesty, was a voice inside my head, wanting to beg him over and over not to die because I couldn't do life without him. How more selfish could you get? So, I said nothing. I distanced himself from him too. And I ran.
I tried. Or did I? The final straw was seeing Mark so sick. We should have been working on our relationship. We should have been doing every damn thing in our power to fix it so Justin wasn't more hurt. So he wasn't more terrified and pushing him further into the flames of his mental illness that had nearly taken his so many times, they had lost count. I thought he hated me. I saw the way he looked at me those last times I tried to do something - anything - to figure out how I could fix things, without having a fucking clue where to start. He looked at me like I was a stranger. Like he knew I was going to keep hurting him, so he wouldn't let me near him to risk it. He didn't trust me, and I didn't deserve his trust.
As soon as I saw that, I felt like I had destroyed everything beyond repair. I packed up and got on the next flight to Paris. They didn't need me there breathing down their necks of establishing the new Paris HQ for FABULOUS, but I went anyway. Because I didn't do something, I was going to explode. I really would destroy everything beyond repair, and then I would be alone.
Depression is such a nasty demon. I had never experienced it in my life before. Paris had. Being the victim of vile bullies, he tried to kill himself. It was a miracle he was still here. Just like Justin. I could feel it creeping into my soul, dragging me down into a hazy darkness I knew existed but had never seen. I knew it existed because the three most important humans in my life, who made me who I was, suffered it. Then I began to understand. I don't know how it just dawned on me in the middle of one night, sitting out on the balcony of my Paris apartment, looking at the lights on the Eiffel Tower.
I was completely alone, oceans away from everyone I loved, and I had no one else to blame but myself. No, I didn't feel like taking my own life. But I felt like giving up. I felt like I had nothing left to bother to keep going for. Nothing felt like it mattered anymore, because I hadn't done enough to deserve to keep it. I was ignoring my brother's calls, emails, text message. My brother undergoing chemo and radiation therapy, and I was on a massive guilt trip about how much I fucked up and stopped being able to see the forest through the trees. The forest was my life. The forest was my brother, my son, my husband. And everyone interconnected to them. I had it all once. How did I drop the fucking ball so hard?
I was waiting on the therapists doorstep at 8am when he opened that next morning. Somehow, speaking fluent French and having my first session not in my native tongue helped. It was like I could hide from all my issues behind the language but still have to face them head-on. As I started to talk, it all came tumbling out. The only way I was going to be able to get back the life I cherished so much was pulling my head out of my ass an accepting that even if I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, I had to do it anyway. Letting the fear drive me wasn't going to cure my brother's cancer. It wasn't going to resurrect Mom from the dead. It wasn't going stop my son being mentally ill and a survivor of sexual abuse. It wasn't going to prevent my biological daughter looking at me like she wished she had anyone else's genes but mine. It wasn't going to heal my husband's illness. All it was going to do was make all of them learn to live without me. Learn to stop loving me. Learn to believe I didn't care.
Writing it down helps. I laughed at my therapist when he suggested I write a book. Me, write a book? Bullshit. I was no journalist. I knew what looked good in the fashion industry and I knew what would sell. I knew what people wanted to hear, to hear, to believe to give their life a little bit of glamorous shine. Only, I realised that maybe the reason I couldn't help anyone else in the pages of their books was because I stopped believing in my own story. I ran away, didn't I? I gave up on everything I believed in because it was too hard. Life wasn't about throwing in the towel when shit got hard. Fuck, I made my son believe he was trying to sabotage my marriage! And why? Because having a laugh about Vegas wedding was a good way to cover up that it was another fuck up in my life, just like giving up my daughter. Because I didn't want to face shopping for a wedding dress without my mom. Again, I let my own selfish insecurities hurt the people I love. I was on the precipice of losing them all forever.
I doubt this book will ever get published, but I'm writing it anyway. I'm writing it to make sense of my fucking up mind full of mistakes and misdirected emotions. I'm writing it to fill a void that should never have existed. I'm writing it so my son can read it, if he ever comes to a day he stops hating me. I'm writing it so he can know that that I never really thought he was sabotaging my marriage. I'm writing it to teach myself how to be strong again, so I can be strong for him. I'm writing it because I want him to understand that I got terrified I could never be as strong of a person as he is, and stopped believing I deserved to be his mom.
I'm writing it... and I'm going home.
Gen Hart ♥
Original Character
It took a long time for me to believe that going to therapy wasn't evidence of how much of a failure I was. Failure as sister, a wife, a mother, a human. I thought I hated myself when I gave up my baby for adopted all those years ago, but this was worse. I didn't understand why I kept fucking up and hurting the people I love more than life itself. There is no life without any of them. So, why was I such a coward and ran away?
Because running was easy. Running, I could control. Running wasn't killing my brother with cancer, killing my child to suicide, crippling my husband with an illness I couldn't spell, let alone understand. Running wasn't seeing the disappointed Facebook posts from my daughter, not feeling any connection there to being her mother. How was I supposed to just know that? I couldn't find words to explain it. Not when I had already done it. I accepted my son as my own, and loved him so much it hurt every time I saw tears in his eyes. Tears I knew a cuddle and words would never be able to heal. All his pain, how so very broken and damaged he is, I still loved him. He loved me back. He called me mom. He wanted my arms around him, he wanted to hear that I loved him. I failed him.
How was she was supposed to accept I didn't know how to be a mother to her when I wanted to be to another child who didn't even come from my own genes? Genes never matter. They didn't matter! Then all of a sudden they mattered? Why did they suddenly matter? Or was it because she terrified me? She terrified me because she reminded me of that time back then I wanted to leave in the past? She reminded me of the guilt, of the pain. She reminded me of them taking her from my arms, and then never seeing her again. But I chose that. I chose it, and I know I could never have been the mother to her then that she needed. I didn't even know how to care for myself, and I was ashamed. All I wanted was my mom, but she wasn't there to help me. So I gave up my daughter, because I thought I could never get it right without Mom helping me.
Then they were telling me I could lose my brother too? The one person who had been there for me, no matter what. Who had never judged me, no matter how much I screwed up. We vowed to conquer the world together, and we did it. We dreamed our way right to the top. He couldn't be taken from me. He couldn't. Cancer too Mom, it couldn't have Paris too.
The world didn't listen. It didn't slow it down. He began to look more and more sick. More and like he was dying. He was losing weight, and his eyes lost their light. Just like Justin's whenever his life was hanging by a mere thread. I didn't know what to say to him. There were no words to be able to reassure someone against cancer. They were false and empty, and Paris had never liked false an empty. He liked real and honest. But all I had that was true honesty, was a voice inside my head, wanting to beg him over and over not to die because I couldn't do life without him. How more selfish could you get? So, I said nothing. I distanced himself from him too. And I ran.
I tried. Or did I? The final straw was seeing Mark so sick. We should have been working on our relationship. We should have been doing every damn thing in our power to fix it so Justin wasn't more hurt. So he wasn't more terrified and pushing him further into the flames of his mental illness that had nearly taken his so many times, they had lost count. I thought he hated me. I saw the way he looked at me those last times I tried to do something - anything - to figure out how I could fix things, without having a fucking clue where to start. He looked at me like I was a stranger. Like he knew I was going to keep hurting him, so he wouldn't let me near him to risk it. He didn't trust me, and I didn't deserve his trust.
As soon as I saw that, I felt like I had destroyed everything beyond repair. I packed up and got on the next flight to Paris. They didn't need me there breathing down their necks of establishing the new Paris HQ for FABULOUS, but I went anyway. Because I didn't do something, I was going to explode. I really would destroy everything beyond repair, and then I would be alone.
Depression is such a nasty demon. I had never experienced it in my life before. Paris had. Being the victim of vile bullies, he tried to kill himself. It was a miracle he was still here. Just like Justin. I could feel it creeping into my soul, dragging me down into a hazy darkness I knew existed but had never seen. I knew it existed because the three most important humans in my life, who made me who I was, suffered it. Then I began to understand. I don't know how it just dawned on me in the middle of one night, sitting out on the balcony of my Paris apartment, looking at the lights on the Eiffel Tower.
I was completely alone, oceans away from everyone I loved, and I had no one else to blame but myself. No, I didn't feel like taking my own life. But I felt like giving up. I felt like I had nothing left to bother to keep going for. Nothing felt like it mattered anymore, because I hadn't done enough to deserve to keep it. I was ignoring my brother's calls, emails, text message. My brother undergoing chemo and radiation therapy, and I was on a massive guilt trip about how much I fucked up and stopped being able to see the forest through the trees. The forest was my life. The forest was my brother, my son, my husband. And everyone interconnected to them. I had it all once. How did I drop the fucking ball so hard?
I was waiting on the therapists doorstep at 8am when he opened that next morning. Somehow, speaking fluent French and having my first session not in my native tongue helped. It was like I could hide from all my issues behind the language but still have to face them head-on. As I started to talk, it all came tumbling out. The only way I was going to be able to get back the life I cherished so much was pulling my head out of my ass an accepting that even if I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, I had to do it anyway. Letting the fear drive me wasn't going to cure my brother's cancer. It wasn't going to resurrect Mom from the dead. It wasn't going stop my son being mentally ill and a survivor of sexual abuse. It wasn't going to prevent my biological daughter looking at me like she wished she had anyone else's genes but mine. It wasn't going to heal my husband's illness. All it was going to do was make all of them learn to live without me. Learn to stop loving me. Learn to believe I didn't care.
Writing it down helps. I laughed at my therapist when he suggested I write a book. Me, write a book? Bullshit. I was no journalist. I knew what looked good in the fashion industry and I knew what would sell. I knew what people wanted to hear, to hear, to believe to give their life a little bit of glamorous shine. Only, I realised that maybe the reason I couldn't help anyone else in the pages of their books was because I stopped believing in my own story. I ran away, didn't I? I gave up on everything I believed in because it was too hard. Life wasn't about throwing in the towel when shit got hard. Fuck, I made my son believe he was trying to sabotage my marriage! And why? Because having a laugh about Vegas wedding was a good way to cover up that it was another fuck up in my life, just like giving up my daughter. Because I didn't want to face shopping for a wedding dress without my mom. Again, I let my own selfish insecurities hurt the people I love. I was on the precipice of losing them all forever.
I doubt this book will ever get published, but I'm writing it anyway. I'm writing it to make sense of my fucking up mind full of mistakes and misdirected emotions. I'm writing it to fill a void that should never have existed. I'm writing it so my son can read it, if he ever comes to a day he stops hating me. I'm writing it so he can know that that I never really thought he was sabotaging my marriage. I'm writing it to teach myself how to be strong again, so I can be strong for him. I'm writing it because I want him to understand that I got terrified I could never be as strong of a person as he is, and stopped believing I deserved to be his mom.
I'm writing it... and I'm going home.
Original Character