Inside her head
Songfic: Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park
The store had been very busy that day, and I had been able to keep myself from thinking, but now at 2 am I was alone. Morwen was asleep in her bed and I knew that she would not wake for quite a while. My thoughts kept drifting back to Heero and then back to my childhood. I cursed myself for being who I was. I wished that I could change things but I was the way I was.
"Memories concern
Like opening the wound
I'm picking me apart again
You all assume
I'm safer in my room
Unless I try to start again..."
Pain and loneliness had kept a constant vigilance over my life from the day I was born. I was always an outsider. My father wanted great things from me and I never did anything but disappoint him. He disapproved of my life entirely, and my religion. He always wanted his daughter to be a good little catholic girl but that path was not the right one for me. He had never liked Heero either, and I was always hearing about my shortcomings from him.
"I don't want to be the one
Who battles always choose
Cuz inside I realize
That I'm the one confused..."
Once upon a time I had been a strong person who needed nobody to survive, but those around me had killed that woman. The only strength I had now was contained in a single fragile mask that threatened to fall from my face and smash like porcelain on the floor. I had no problem standing up for what I believed in, and for those I cared about, but I was never able to stand up for myself very well.
Be seen and not heard. Oh look the baby is crying again, Aww poor baby, big girls don't cry. Don't tell me your sick again? God damn it child do you expect me to take care of you forever? Suck it up, get over and get ready to go NOW! My father's taunting haunted me.
"I don't want to be the one
Who battles always choose
Cuz inside I realize
That I'm the one confused..."
I hid my tears and my weaknesses from the world because I wasn't allowed to be anything but the best. I could not let anyone know that I had failed at any task. I wasn't allowed to cry, crying was weak and big girls didn't cry. That's what I had always been told. It never bothered me when somebody else cried because they were allowed. But for me to cry or betray my inner feeling was out of the question. Everybody had to think I was fine. Everybody had to think that everything was always ok because if they didn't I had failed somewhere along the line. That would be showing weakness.
During my school years I dealt with the teasing of my peers because I was different. I worked hard to keep above average grades and everyone viewed me as little miss perfect because of it. I never spoke out of line or did anything that could be taken as against the rules. I spent my entire childhood trying to prove to the world that I was somebody and not some piece of trash being windblown down the street. I wanted my father to think well of me but it never worked, I was always lacking in his eyes.
"I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit tonight..."
You think that when you are teased that you ignore it and it never really bothered you. But give it a few years, it eventually gets to you and effects your behavior. You start to doubt yourself and second guess what you are saying because you don't want somebody to think your stupid for saying it. Then somebody near you laughs and you squirm into your seat more because you are absolutely positive that it was you they were laughing at. It usually is anyway. Then you doubt everything about yourself and someday you'll be lying awake in your bed with tears running down your face wondering where you went wrong.
My mother had died while giving birth to me, and my father had always looked at me with contempt, perhaps blaming me for her death. He had never wanted children but had agreed for the sake of my mother's happiness. When he wasn't home I sneaked into the attic and went through the boxes of her things and looked at picture after picture of her wondering what she was like. Perhaps she would have loved me even if my father didn't.
"Cultured my cure
I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again
I hurt much more
Than anytime before
I have no options left again..."
My brother had left home when he was seventeen, when I was little more then a toddler. I didn't remember him very well because I was so young. He had always taken care of me and hid me from my father's temper while he was around. But they day that he left I became the new target for my father's rantings. The only difference was that my father never beat me like he had Milliardo. But there were many more ways to scar and bruise a person then by laying a single hand on them. Many, many, more ways...
It would have been nice to know that somebody would understand. But I had never felt that safe and protected in a relationship before. So many times I had curled myself into a ball and cried wishing for somebody to hold me like a mother does a child and tell me that everything would be all right. Heero had never understood that. I had never been able to bring myself to tell him either. I doubted myself too much.
"I don't want to be the one
Who battles always choose
Cuz inside I realize
That I'm the one confused..."
Most of all I yearned to believe people when they said they would be there for me. I wished I hadn't been betrayed too many times to trust anybody completely. I feared trust because it was always so uncertain. Why did it have to be like that. Why didn't I ever feel respected, and even if I was I never could tell. I had too many trust issues. While I was talking to people it always felt like they were secretly laughing at me behind my backs thinking I was such a looser or something to that effect. It just wasn't fair.
"I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So, I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit tonight..."
I tried over and over again to please everyone, and all I had ever accomplished over the years was getting myself hurt over and over again. I was poked and prodded into being things I didn't ever want to be all through my childhood. I never had much of a chance to be a child and have fun because everyone around me was shoving me headlong in the opposite direction.
"I'll paint it on the walls
Cuz I'm the one that falls
I'll never fight again
and this is how it ends..."
It did not matter that I knew people weren't really like this, because knowing and believing were two very different things. I felt mostly respected by the people and the friends that I had met here but old habits were hard to break. I didn't share very much of what was going on inside of my head because I was too scared that they would betray me. The only person I believed in was my daughter. And she too would probably come to distrust and dislike me like everyone else. Only time would tell.
"I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
But now I have some clarity
to show you what I mean
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So, I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit
Breaking the habit tonight."
Songfic: Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park
The store had been very busy that day, and I had been able to keep myself from thinking, but now at 2 am I was alone. Morwen was asleep in her bed and I knew that she would not wake for quite a while. My thoughts kept drifting back to Heero and then back to my childhood. I cursed myself for being who I was. I wished that I could change things but I was the way I was.
"Memories concern
Like opening the wound
I'm picking me apart again
You all assume
I'm safer in my room
Unless I try to start again..."
Pain and loneliness had kept a constant vigilance over my life from the day I was born. I was always an outsider. My father wanted great things from me and I never did anything but disappoint him. He disapproved of my life entirely, and my religion. He always wanted his daughter to be a good little catholic girl but that path was not the right one for me. He had never liked Heero either, and I was always hearing about my shortcomings from him.
"I don't want to be the one
Who battles always choose
Cuz inside I realize
That I'm the one confused..."
Once upon a time I had been a strong person who needed nobody to survive, but those around me had killed that woman. The only strength I had now was contained in a single fragile mask that threatened to fall from my face and smash like porcelain on the floor. I had no problem standing up for what I believed in, and for those I cared about, but I was never able to stand up for myself very well.
Be seen and not heard. Oh look the baby is crying again, Aww poor baby, big girls don't cry. Don't tell me your sick again? God damn it child do you expect me to take care of you forever? Suck it up, get over and get ready to go NOW! My father's taunting haunted me.
"I don't want to be the one
Who battles always choose
Cuz inside I realize
That I'm the one confused..."
I hid my tears and my weaknesses from the world because I wasn't allowed to be anything but the best. I could not let anyone know that I had failed at any task. I wasn't allowed to cry, crying was weak and big girls didn't cry. That's what I had always been told. It never bothered me when somebody else cried because they were allowed. But for me to cry or betray my inner feeling was out of the question. Everybody had to think I was fine. Everybody had to think that everything was always ok because if they didn't I had failed somewhere along the line. That would be showing weakness.
During my school years I dealt with the teasing of my peers because I was different. I worked hard to keep above average grades and everyone viewed me as little miss perfect because of it. I never spoke out of line or did anything that could be taken as against the rules. I spent my entire childhood trying to prove to the world that I was somebody and not some piece of trash being windblown down the street. I wanted my father to think well of me but it never worked, I was always lacking in his eyes.
"I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit tonight..."
You think that when you are teased that you ignore it and it never really bothered you. But give it a few years, it eventually gets to you and effects your behavior. You start to doubt yourself and second guess what you are saying because you don't want somebody to think your stupid for saying it. Then somebody near you laughs and you squirm into your seat more because you are absolutely positive that it was you they were laughing at. It usually is anyway. Then you doubt everything about yourself and someday you'll be lying awake in your bed with tears running down your face wondering where you went wrong.
My mother had died while giving birth to me, and my father had always looked at me with contempt, perhaps blaming me for her death. He had never wanted children but had agreed for the sake of my mother's happiness. When he wasn't home I sneaked into the attic and went through the boxes of her things and looked at picture after picture of her wondering what she was like. Perhaps she would have loved me even if my father didn't.
"Cultured my cure
I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again
I hurt much more
Than anytime before
I have no options left again..."
My brother had left home when he was seventeen, when I was little more then a toddler. I didn't remember him very well because I was so young. He had always taken care of me and hid me from my father's temper while he was around. But they day that he left I became the new target for my father's rantings. The only difference was that my father never beat me like he had Milliardo. But there were many more ways to scar and bruise a person then by laying a single hand on them. Many, many, more ways...
It would have been nice to know that somebody would understand. But I had never felt that safe and protected in a relationship before. So many times I had curled myself into a ball and cried wishing for somebody to hold me like a mother does a child and tell me that everything would be all right. Heero had never understood that. I had never been able to bring myself to tell him either. I doubted myself too much.
"I don't want to be the one
Who battles always choose
Cuz inside I realize
That I'm the one confused..."
Most of all I yearned to believe people when they said they would be there for me. I wished I hadn't been betrayed too many times to trust anybody completely. I feared trust because it was always so uncertain. Why did it have to be like that. Why didn't I ever feel respected, and even if I was I never could tell. I had too many trust issues. While I was talking to people it always felt like they were secretly laughing at me behind my backs thinking I was such a looser or something to that effect. It just wasn't fair.
"I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So, I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit tonight..."
I tried over and over again to please everyone, and all I had ever accomplished over the years was getting myself hurt over and over again. I was poked and prodded into being things I didn't ever want to be all through my childhood. I never had much of a chance to be a child and have fun because everyone around me was shoving me headlong in the opposite direction.
"I'll paint it on the walls
Cuz I'm the one that falls
I'll never fight again
and this is how it ends..."
It did not matter that I knew people weren't really like this, because knowing and believing were two very different things. I felt mostly respected by the people and the friends that I had met here but old habits were hard to break. I didn't share very much of what was going on inside of my head because I was too scared that they would betray me. The only person I believed in was my daughter. And she too would probably come to distrust and dislike me like everyone else. Only time would tell.
"I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
But now I have some clarity
to show you what I mean
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So, I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit
Breaking the habit tonight."