Wednesday, February 13, 1991

 

 

 

Peoria, Arizona

Wednesday, February 13, 1991

Tomorrow I will enter the United States Navy. Even thinking that causes a mix of excitement and trepidation I’ve never before experienced. What am I doing? I can’t lie, sitting here, trying to write this diary, I feel a little bit like I’m going to piss my pants. I am scared; I am literally scared enough to piss myself. Nice, huh?

I am trying to hide my fears from my family and friends. I don’t think anyone knows that I cried nearly all day yesterday due to fear. If someone might have seen that I was watery-eyed, I think I did a good job of chalking it up to the fact that I will miss everyone.

Oh, God, am I really doing this? I have gone to the bathroom so many times today, because I really am afraid. I know it could happen. I will think the wrong thought and the fear will overwhelm me and I will piss my pants. There it is again, that feeling, ugh! Piss. My. Pants. I have to stop thinking about it.

This morning I laid in bed, knowing I will not get that luxury again for a long while, and I have been trying to convince myself that I am brave. I am right on the edge, I could still cry, but I’ve decided that I won’t. Today won’t be about that. I learned a long time ago that tears don’t serve me well anyway, because they change nothing. It is just difficult to step out into the great unknown. I’m leaving my parent’s house, my family, my city, my state – basically everything I’ve ever known and loved.

I have no idea what kind of life I will find for myself out in the great, wide world. I keep telling myself that this is what I want. This is what I’ve wanted for a long time. The truth is, I am a nineteen-year-old girl, who graduated High School nine months ago. I have no earthly clue what the hell I want to do with my life. I just know I don’t want to live in my parent’s house forever, or even for another minute longer. I don’t want a dead-end job cleaning up after people for the rest of my life. I don’t want to work myself to exhaustion to pay my way through community college while trying to afford my own place to live either. Also, it helps that my father told me I had to leave, I won’t even bother quoting him on that one because I can’t think of a single quote that sounds remotely nice or reasonable. Let’s just say I don’t feel wanted, the feeling is mutual, and leave that subject for later.

Even with all of that on my mind and in my heart, I’m not sure that I can do this. I mean, I know I can do it, I’m just so frightened of the unknown. Yep, I still want to piss my pants, or maybe hide under my bed. There is a lot of room under my daybed. It’s white with metal curly cues, very old fashioned looking but taller than the average twin bed. I could honestly crawl under the frilly bed skirt and back myself into the corner and curl up and hide. But that would just be embarrassing if I was found, that is if anyone bothered to look for me today.

Today is my day, my last day of my childhood. Honestly, I know that nothing will ever be the same again after today. This is my chance. My opportunity to change my life, to learn new things, to meet new people, to see the world. My Friends all say I’m crazy, “There is a WAR going on!” They exclaim as if I don’t understand that. I see it. I’ve watched it on T.V. just like everyone else. They are calling it Desert Storm.

My friends are all either in awe or terror of war. We have all been taught about Vietnam, but we don’t remember it, not really. We innocent children of the 1980’s who have known hostage crisis, and fear of nuclear war, but have never seen the United States in a real war, that we can remember. It’s a real bubble-buster, it popped right through that cocoon of safety we were all nestled in as children. Honestly, I don’t care if there is a war now, it doesn’t change my plans in the slightest. I can’t stay here. I have nowhere to go but forward.

I will join the world. I will learn new things. I will become a new person, the real me, the adult me. The hardest part was cutting off all of my long hair, if I’m being honest. I look like a boy with short hair. I hate that. Well there’s also that little matter of facing the fear. The Piss Myself fear. Another successful trip to the bathroom later, and all that is left is leaving.

© T. L. Gabbert

 

 

 

 

 

I am not okay.

 

I am not okay.

 

I look fine on the outside; you’d never know anything is wrong. In my head,

however, there is a war going on.  It’s in the compulsive need to check all the

locks before bed, and then check them again, and once more, and did I really

check them all? It’s in the need to make sure my bedroom door is always locked

after I shut it, even though I may be alone in the house. It’s in having an exit

strategy for every room I enter. It’s in the fear I feel every time I let someone

drive me somewhere and my car is no longer handy to me. It’s why I offer to

drive people everywhere, even if they are family. If I have allowed you to drive

me someplace; that means I either had no choice or I trust you, a lot.

 

When I walk down the street, I don’t see shops and eatery’s, I see hiding places

and ambush spots; I am waiting to fight off an attacker, even in broad daylight,

and my plan is not to wound and run, it is to fight until I kill them.  It is why I

hate crowds, especially crowds that are contained, like in the mall. It is why I’d

rather shop anywhere than in the mall; the mall takes too long to escape from.

It is walking into a strange place and looking around for anything and everything

that could be used as a weapon or a means of escape. It is not being able to sleep

at night, because I never feel safe. It is needing noise or music or television running

to avoid being startled awake by the slightest sound. It is the moment when I don’t

just wake up, I am startled awake and my heart won’t stop pounding, and I am

afraid to lay back down and close my eyes; I just want to run away somewhere…

but there is nowhere to go.

 

It is always worrying about what awful thing could happen, rather than what

normal and good things are happening. It is in the obsession to always lock my

car, and to check the backseat and even sometimes the trunk to make sure

they’re empty before I get in.  It is never wanting to be approached by anyone

I don’t know. When I am just out walking, if someone approaches me on the

street or in a parking lot, even another woman, it is trying to assess whether

or not I could kill or maim them and escape if I need to. It is living with constant

fear and stress and the underlying anger that comes from always being afraid

and never being able to shut it off!  It is feeling hatred towards everyone and

everything near me because you are all normal, and no one understands, and

I just want to be left alone! It is trying to be “normal” and failing to ever feel

that way. It is always having to “act normal” and being stressed out by that. It

is in being numb to my feelings and finding it easier to push people away than

it is to bring them closer.

 

It is the soul-deep need to be independent, to never rely on anyone and to never,

ever talk about the way I feel. It is a sight, a sound, or a smell that creates a

mental picture in my head that will depress me for weeks. It is not being able to

explain that I need to be left alone in order to work through my issue and feel

better. It is the disgust I feel for what I perceive as my own weaknesses, and how

hard that makes it for me to deal with my feelings.  But mostly it is the fear,

unreasonable, irrational fear, which I feel all the time – ALL – THE – TIME.

You will never see it. You will never know I am feeling it. But it is always there.

It’s why I don’t like scary movies, or suspense thrillers, or any type of being

frightened.  It is being easily startled, and having that happen can ruin my whole

day.  It is why if you jump out and scare me, it makes me hate you and want to

hurt you and I try to laugh it off, but I don’t find it funny. I don’t find it funny,

not even when it’s my children.  I don’t find it funny.

 

I am not okay. But none of you ever really knew that. I don’t like to talk about it. I’d

rather you all think that I am “normal” and just like you. I am not okay. I have PTSD.

I have had it since I was 20, a gift of my military service. I am not okay. I am hard to

deal with, hard to live with, hard to be friends with. I am not okay, and I just thought

you all should know…because I’m tired of being ashamed of my fear.

 

©T. L. Gabbert

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Worst Enemy

 

My Worst Enemy

 

I fight, I cut, I scratch, and I bleed,

I hurt, I scream, all the pain inside me,

I thrust out into the dark abyss of my soul.

 

I burn, I wound, I claw and I need,

To bring down the demons,

That terrify me.

 

When I stop and I stand still, I see my enemy,

My hands grasping its throat, strangling,

She is me.

 

© T. L. Gabbert