anonymous and public

The past several months have been full of trauma that has been incredibly damaging to my psyche, my self-esteem, my life.  My life seems to be on "pause."

I take some comfort in thinking about how much worse my situation could be, and looking at people who have survived much scarier situations than me.  Also, I use positive thinking techniques that helped me recover from a different trauma a couple years ago.  Unfortunately, using these techniques are only keeping me mildly functional.  I have been able to keep my job, and friends and family are able to congratulate me for "doing so well," but they don't know.  I'm not doing so well.

It is so embarrassing to admit what a mess I am, that I am crying while anonymously posting about it here.  I figured that if I admit it to myself, and write about it daily... perhaps I'll start breaking the destructive cycles that I'm spinning in these days.  Also, I am hopeful that one day I'll be posting here, reporting about having recovered tremendously from the trauma, and possibly feeling proud of myself.

If my parents were rich, I'd ask them to send me to a nice rehab facility, because alcohol has been a dangerous factor in my life for many years.  I am not usually a daily-drinking alcoholic, but sometimes I am.  Recently I am.  The danger is when I binge-drink.  Especially when I binge-drink alone.  Sometimes I've woken up with cuts all over my legs, and I have to go to the bathroom or kitchen for "evidence" to figure out what I did.

A few months ago was the most recent time that I drank and cut myself, and it was the first time that I cut  myself deeply enough to require medical attention... which I did not get.  I cut my arm with my favorite cooking knife, and then scratched "YOU ARE HURTING ME" in large letters, using the length of my leg as a canvas.  The lettering was just done with a dull pin, and the resulting injury is more burned than cut, because of the rapid back-and-forth movement I used to do the lettering.

I barely remember the day that I did that, but I did reach out for help from a family member, who picked me up and convinced me to never return to my husband.  My arm still hurts.  The first few weeks, I used an ointment to prevent infection, given to me from a friend who works for a doctor.  Then, I stopped caring for my poor arm, and now it is hurting again, every day.  I have begun putting an oil on it every day so that the stretching scar won't hurt so much.  Also, I bought butterfly bandages to help it from stretching and hurting at night.

My confessions for right now... I suppose the things that I'm needing to get off my chest, and at least admit to myself:

I'm drinking alone, and way too much.
I'm still in love with the idea of my husband, and wish there was a way for us to be together again.
I'm scared that if I give my husband another chance, he will kill me.
I can't get myself to fill out divorce paperwork.
If I had no debt or "mess" to clean up, I'd consider suicide, but the last thing I want to do is put my burdens on my loved ones more than I already have.
There are so many things "wrong" with me that I can hardly stand myself.

No one knows how badly I am suffering, but my closest family members are worried about me, and it makes me ache so much!  I'm tired of being the black sheep, the person my family worries about, the "pretty little mess."