You can run, but you cannot hide.

Huh. I had a spate of recession-related bad luck, felt like my family's lifestyle was threatened and then I sprang into action. The hub and I got a lot accomplished and we will be just fine. I'm wondering now just when I started feeling the relief of that knowledge on the inside. A couple days ago? Except for a few out-of-context panic attacks and some hypochondria (and the freak out that financial upset causes me), for the most part I was able to make The Crazy go away so I could get things done. The crash came Saturday. I think it actually got started the previous day when I got triggered taking the girls shopping for clothes in another town. The scenery down that way reminds me of my old hometown, the lake and the camping areas there. But I was not aware of this when we went on Friday. I was only aware that I was anxious and nauseated and had to really work at not puking. I guess I forgot myself. I remembered when we went back there again on Saturday. The way the sky looked, the way the land stretched out in front of me on an incline... I suddenly knew why I needed to puke. It was because I was SURE that the lake was just over that incline. The lake. The scary fucking lake. And no, I can't remember why it was so scary. Only the little girl knows. And I remember a little something now about August being bad for me, but I don't have access to the details. I guess I forgot that August is bad. I know I could look at the posts I wrote in previous Augusts for details, but I don't really want to. I don't want those things. I want them to go away and leave me alone.

Anyway, the crash came. Flashback city. Hurried into the house and locked myself in my bedroom to spare the family. Called New Guy's cell phone from the closet floor. Voice mail, but I couldn't make myself talk. My phone rang a few minutes later. I guess New Guy checked his missed calls. And I couldn't be more grateful. I don't really like the closet. I kind of passed out from exhaustion after all that. And now I'm here. I'm not sure where I am supposed to go from here or even where 'here' really is or what it means to me. Not sure what I should be doing or what to think of all this. I just don't know. But I do know this - New Guy is right that my parents are fucking assholes. They did this to me, you know. They gave me PTSD and a dissociative disorder. They suck. New Guy is also right that it is not true that no one loves me. I do have people who love me now. I do.

Wanna hear something weird? Old Guy came to me in a dream Saturday morning. I think it was a warning. I dreamed that I kept finding very small children under the carpet in my house. They seemed weird and odd to me and I didn't know what to do with them, so each one just kind of left (disappeared?) only for me to find yet another one under there. Old Guy appeared and asked me about the one that had just come out from under and I remember telling him that I didn't think she felt good or that something must be wrong with her and she wasn't quite normal. I remember that his voice sounded very kind and sincere when he told me that I need to be good to her and take care of her. I realized that I didn't know HOW to take care of her and just didn't know what to do with a child like that one. And then I woke up. I guess I don't know how to take care of the little girl and she and her material will never stop coming out from under the rug where I swept them until I figure out what to do. It's not the girl so much which offends me, it's her terrifying material. Unfortunately, they are a package deal. This is a problem. (Considering what I spoke about with Old Guy last time, I think I know the 'why' of the alcohol. It allows the girl, but not her material. The alcohol separates her from her material. She comes out at night, so I slip her a Mickey Finn instead of dissociating her away entirely. Now I know what was 'wrong' with the kid in the dream. She wasn't retarded, she was drunk. What a shock. Not.)