One of Booty's babies, Smudge. Can you tell how abused she is?
I fell apart. Me, who survived my parents and rape and incest, who successfully ended a generations-long cycle of child abuse in our family, who fought and clawed and beat up every doctor, every teacher or bureaucrat who stood in the way of my children's needs, when it came to me, I just had nothing left. And the doctors I most need to believe in my strength see me as a weak, whiny twit maybe looking for her next fix, certainly not doing enough to fix herself.
There are times when I want to beat them for not knowing better, for the weak thinking that allows them the luxury of blaming my situation on me. Other times I want to beat myself for trusting them (one in particular) so implicitly. Guess who got beat up and ended up back in the old nutbarn? You got it. I soaked up their low opinion of me as though it were a chocolate sauce and I a sponge cake. I laid back and let them blame me for - god, for everything. Their so low opinion of my character and strength, not remotely concealed behind a tissue thin layer of bonhomie and good natured tolerance of my wacky character mirrored exactly the feelings I have been fighting in myself all my life and I bought it. I almost died and it was all my fault. I am in constant pain and that is due to some deep failing in the insubstantial center of me. If only I would lose a little more weight, if only I were made of tougher stuff and smiled through the pain, if only I were not so sick all the time we would not be on the brink of bankruptcy and wouldn't it be best for all if I just - weren't a burden anymore?
And you know, nearly dying is no cake walk, but that isn't what really did it to me. It was that the people I most needed to see how strong I have been, how hard and savagely I have fought for an identity of my own, to raise my beautiful children, all they saw was the weakest possible image of me and they felt more than disdain. They wrote me off with disgust.
Now I don't know who to trust, who to talk to, whether to talk to anyone at all. Maybe I should embrace the pain for my husband's sake. Certainly I need never to look at another damned opiate. And all involved, the doctor who has no real idea what is wrong with me and my darling husband - all have pinned their hopes for my rehabilitation on yet another doctor who I will go to see not because I believe he can help, but only so that no one can accuse me later on of not doing all I can to reclaim that healthy rosy glow.
God, I'm so angry.
