I’ve always gotten the feeling that people believe I’m too sensitive. That I get upset too easily. That my emotions are perhaps a bit too strong.
I don’t know whether this is true or not. I don’t know if I’m more sensitive than most people because I don’t know what it’s like to be most people. I only know what it’s like to be myself.
I know sometimes the world seems to be a bit too loud. Sometimes it’s actual auditory loudness — too much screaming, too many sirens, too much media. I can’t have that. I need some quiet. But more what I’m talking about is that emotionally the world is too loud. Out there there is too much pain and there is too much suffering and sometimes it even feels like there’s too much joy. It’s just too much sometimes to take in. Sometimes I wish I could turn off that part of me that feels all of those things that are out there. But then I wonder if that wouldn’t be an overwhelming sadness in itself.
But then there are also all of the feelings that aren’t out there — the ones that are here, inside of me. And those are the loudest of the all. Sometimes they are so loud, they almost seem to leave me deaf to everything that is going on around me. They lock me up into a prison inside of myself, and I am left utterly unable to see or hear or experience anything that is going on around me.
Today we were sitting in the back of church. We weren’t late, but we got there just as mass was starting, so we ended up in the back. That turned out to be a good thing because my little two were very much today. Mae kept talking. Loudly. And laughing and wiggling and occasionally crying. And Goosie was trying to be good. She didn’t “talk” once. Instead she whispered. Very loudly and very frequently. And she kept dropping quarters very loudly. And saying she needed to go to the bathroom. And whether or not the people behind us were annoyed with this display or weren’t even aware it was going on I felt their eyes drilling into me.
I kept hearing all of the judgments.
You can’t keep your kids under control.
You shouldn’t bring them if they can’t behave.
You are incompetent as a mother.
And then there were the accusations that I had been heaping on myself. I worked hard to get the kids dressed and looking cute. TJ has plenty of work clothes that he can just sift through to find something to wear. And I look disheveled as always. I spend all my time making everyone else look presentable, and I look like I had just woken up.
And that’s the loudness that comes crashing down and rings all around me pretty much constantly — the overwhelming, deafening sound of invisibility. Of having these feelings that no one hears. Of having these needs that go unmet. Of constantly being the answer to other people’s questions without having the opportunity to ask my own of myself.
And there, in that back pew in the middle of church, I started to crumble. The tears started to flow. I started shaking. My head was spinning in a million different directions, and my eyes stopped perceiving everything that was around me. Suddenly, I felt just how acutely invisible I was and yet how so strongly my feelings wanted to be let out. How I wanted to scream, “Here I am. I am a person too. I am real.”
And this happens over and over again and I sink further and further into invisibility. I look around, and I see that I do no more than anybody else. I probably do less than other people. I see all of my weaknesses. I see every time I choose ease over difficulty. I see every mistake. Every thing I have ever let slide just to have a moment of peace. And I tell myself that I don’t have a right to these feelings. I don’t have a right to feel invisible. Because I haven’t made myself invisible enough.
I guess that’s the loudest of all of the sounds. The one coming from my own brain that says if I could just fade away enough, if I could just hide my needs enough, if I could just stop feeling enough, then perhaps one day I will be enough.
And that’s the battle. That’s the battle when you devote your life to care taking. How much is enough, how much is too little, and how much is too much? How do you know where you stop and another begins? How do you make space for the spirit that is you while still making space for all the very real needs of all of the others? How do you know when you are taking too much? Because everyone else will always tell you that you are taking too much.
Sometimes it just feels like taking time for myself feels like an act of theft. I feel like so much of me is owed to so many people that there’s not enough to go around. So in order to maintain any piece of myself for myself requires me to steal it from others.
TJ lets me sleep in a lot on the weekends. I’ll wake up when the baby wakes up, and he takes her and brings her downstairs so I can sleep a bit more. I always feel guilty. It’s not the sleep I need. It’s the quiet. It’s the reprieve from responsibilities. I’ll lay there in bed, and I will try not to move a single muscle in my body because I feel a peace that I feel at no other time during the week. In my mind, I know that I am stealing. I know that I am stealing myself away from the girls, and I know that I’m stealing time away from TJ. And I try desperately to ignore it. I try to take that time just for myself. And I do.
But then eventually I must awake. And I go downstairs. And I see all that was needed while I was away. And I spend the day making amends for the time I had taken.
And I really don’t think any of this probably makes much sense to anyone. It doesn’t make much sense to me.
But that feeling of invisibility can knock me down. And sometimes writing is the only way I know how to scream.
“Because everyone will tell you that you are taking too much.”
I have had an epiphany as a mother this past week, and you have spoken to it perfectly in this post. I’m a disabled mother of a special needs three year old, and have completely crumbled under the needs of others since my son was born. I simply cannot give anymore, as these last three years I have given every ounce of blood and sweat that I have. I have finally said, “enough.” And while everyone else says I should be perfectly capable of being a full-time SAHM, I’ve decided to look into some daycare. In many ways I, and everyone I know, sees this as a failure (after all, I do not work because of my illness). But I can no longer be a martyr to the needs of others.
I once heard someone say, “why don’t you get off the cross so Jesus can get back on.” I am getting off the cross pronto. I don’t know if you are on the cross or not, but I encourage you to TAKE what you need for yourself, because others are not going to give it to you. We are the cornerstones of our families….if we go down, everyone goes down, and for the sake of the ones we love, we must take care of ourselves.