Addicted to Isolation

What is a 'Safe Place?'

A 'safe place' is where I feel no judgement, no overwhelming risk, total acceptance of where I am right now.  

Where is that safe place?  

For me, just the act of speaking out loud what I'm thinking and feeling makes me feel very 'unsafe.'  It didn't used to be this bad, but when there is deeper, darker stuff...vulnerability is just really hard.  

I can recall one specific time when I felt noticeably safe.  I'd parked in the parking lot at my church and had a little bit of time just to sit before going in.  I was overwhelmed with a feeling of being safe and secure.  Completely overwhelmed.  I've never felt that before or since, and all I can attribute it to was that somebody must have  prayed for me for that specific thing.  Maybe my mom or dad.  

Right now I am back in the mode of lying everywhere I go.  I don't feel safe enough to tell people how I'm really doing and what I'm really thinking, so I just go on automatic pilot until I'm alone.  Then, I cram garbage food down my face, which only adds to my feelings of guilt and shame and condemnation and all kinds of other junk.   Meanwhile, nothing is truly resolved.


I guess I just want to be alone all the time because it's too tiring to keep up the facade.  Unfortunately, alone-ness is so deceptively beckoning that once it ensnares you, it keeps you begging for more while giving little to nothing in return, and it takes from you far more than it gives.  It's like being an addict.   

A safe place is here.  
Online.  
Alone.  
Nobody to make eye contact with, or to avoid;
Nobody to force me to deal with things in a face-to-face, adult fashion.  

My pseudo room with a faux lamp and chairs, and false cracking, crumbling walls...empty...
It is completely void of the risk AND of the reward of true vulnerability.  A safe, empty blogspot-room with which to finally be honest.  A vacuum.

Well, 'safe place', I want you to know that I began my first draft of my angry letter to my perpetrator.  Actually, the first night I opened my blogspot here was a night I couldn't sleep, so I finally began drafting the letter later on that very night.  It was 4:30am before I was able to start falling asleep. 


If you only knew...if anybody only knew...how much I want to drop everything and run away.  That letter opens up a whole new can of worms, as it is one step closer to the reality of confrontation.  This, too, adds a layer of shame for my lack of being able to deal with reality.  All I can see anymore is how much I screw up and how poorly I am handling my life, and every manner in which I am failing.  


Me.


My eyes are downcast, my spirit is suffocating, I NEED to step outside of my head and let somebody in.  I am filling myself with doubt and despair and disillusionment...allowing darkness to overtake the tiny flicker of light inside of me.  My choices are allowing this...again...my own fault...shame and guilt...(gag!!)


The sorrow of this world brings death, but the sorrow of repentance brings life, right?  So, my sorrow is of this world, not from God, so...where ought I to place my eyes?  


Up.


I lift UP mine eyes to the hills, from whence comes my strength...


Not drawing from within, but from without...


O, God, I have nothing.  I am empty of anything life-giving or worthwhile.  I have no love inside of me.  I'm like a zombie, living with no Life.  


Help me, Jesus...