Yikes Jinkies Zoinks

I am resisting the urge to disappear into Facebook and Twitter to escape from the debilitating effects of a recent life issue. It is hard. I want to be there where everything is okay. Where I know there are people who care. I knew that they were there. And when I posted my planned disappearance, the people that I expected to be there were. This reassures me that everything that I felt wasn't right.
I felt like I was dead. Dead or of as little significance to an uneaducated gardener as a pile of compost next to the toolshed. The tipping point came as my brother launched an impromptu garage sale. Since dad died I have been living at the house because we can't insure it if it is empty. I have also been nagged to downsize my possessions since I will only be an apartment dweller and I don't need it. That is the polite version. Read that as "you don't deserve it". Nevermind that I worked hard for it. That part of what I paid for those things was enduring a humiliating work experience for two years. But, a girl can not live like a frat boy. I see you pointing at my irony. Quit it out. I am a girl. I am an artist. I might have preferred to be a boy at one time but I'm not so I deal. I am creative and I need a home that feels like a nest, not a warehouse... and one filled with nothing. So enough back story.
Move to the end of Friday night. When I got out of work I found out about teh sale that he was hosting at the place I live, a sale that he posted on Craig's list... without a final day. It is an open invitation to for a ton of strangers to invade my home. Again... Nazi's crawling over Tannis looking for the Well of Souls come to mind but I've done that imagery to death since revisiting Raiders. I came home to find that he'd left his dogs at the house for me to sit until he got back. And when he did get back he started in on the whole get rid of your stuff thing. The final note for me was the following exchange.
HIM:Are you married to all that white furniture?
ME: Yes
HIM: Too bad, I was thinking we could use that (points to three pieces) at home. What about that little table?
He pointed to a set of nesting tables that I picked up in Frankfort. They are Victorian in design with glass insets. I bought them because my gramma would have liked them, because I don't always eat at the table and I was tired of balancing food on my lap. I paid dearly for that set. After I finished the emotional attachments review, I realized a swelling desperation in my chest.
I couldn't breathe right. I felt like my vision was blurring. In other words, I had a mild episode. And when they left shortly after that, I started shaking uncontrollably.
I know I've mentioned this. I am an Aquarius. Part of that is the intense need for privacy as a matter of human decency and right. But beyond that is my personality, gifts and past experience that helped to intensify that moment. My whole life I have guarded my inner most thoughts, protected myself from prying eyes because I take a long time to sort out my feelings before I speak. It tends to reduce the need for creative and impassioned apologies later. But it is a messy process. It is painful. And not just for me. Journals take the punishment for others, the slings and arrows that I don't throw until I know for certain that I am entitled as defense or offense to throw them. And I have been punished for those thoughts because people break into them and don't have context for what they read. Again, ironic since I have a public blog. I get it. And you get the distilled version... most of the time. So I felt violated again. I felt future violations in anticipation of strangers trapsing through my house for an undetermined time period. And I heard those words from a few hours before: "Oh! I never considered you." He saw dollar signs and never thought once what the effect on me would be. And he knows what I am like. I've been like this since we were kids. My space. My thoughts... I thought that they were the only things that were ever really mine and it turns out that they are not.
So then add the last feelings before they walked out the door: DEAD
In order for him to ask about my possessions, to say that he thought of a use for my things, he and his wife would have had to have stood in the living room, inspecting my stuff and talking about the what, where and for what purpose. Does anyone remember the scene in Xmas Carol where Scrooge and the GoCFuture were watching the three at the pawn shop describing his death room and what good his discontinued existence would do for them? That he was worth more dead than alive? I felt like that. I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs that I exist and that I am worth more than my stuff. But they only wanted my stuff. I have good taste. I have good design sense. But I have no value as his sister. As a person. I felt like I was waiting around to be composted. And I went to bed feeling as though I were buried alive and people were dancing on my grave.
I don't meet strangers well. I can handle it at work because my coworkers provide a safe environment. I expect to meet the general public at work. But when I go home I am in my castel, my keep. No one comes in that I do not invite. It is my refuge. It is where I can let go of the crap, embrace the light and be renewed for the next day. I don't know how to do this any other way. I've been like this since I was a kid. I feel everything that the people around me feel, even when I can't identify the emotion. If it weren't for a human resource test I wouldn't have known that it is more than a Trek thing to be THAT empathic. I need the time alone. I need to be able to release what I pick up. Empathy is a job that God gave me to do; I can help others in their distress just because I really can say that I feel what they feel. Hell, sometimes I feel it for them... especially for those who don't know they are being picked on. So I don't like the concept of yard sales. And my brother, Mr. Gregarious/Mr. Personality/ the Showboater, thinks that I should cohost this little shindig. He's promised some dealers that they would neet me. And he doesn't tell me that I am supposed to meet them until he's made the promise. As long as I am awake I am supposed to be doing anything he tells me to do when we are in close proximity.
In this situation there is no time to rest. No time to think. Its always on on on on on on on. I am off balance and teetering at the top of his plate spinning pole. It makes me nuts.
I know I sound nuts. I know some of you would say I have over reacted. But really, aren't our lives about the choices we make? I will meet my creator and be judged on my choices and their consequences. I am not being given choices. They are being taken away from me left and right. I feel like I have been burglarized, assaulted and left for dead.
It is no exaggeration. And I know of only one person who I could credit with agreement. That would be the counselor who diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was diagnosed ten years ago. He told me that I may not have had one huge trauma, but like men in the service, lots of little and medium traumas build up and create the same effect in our psyches. I didn't believe him. So I quit seeing him. I believe him now.
I have choices to make and little time in which to implement any plan. And I have to retreat for a while. I love you all. But I don't have the entertainment hours to spend on FB or Twitter. I have to settle my mind so I can think. I can't think right now. With every keystroke I am fighting the urge to metaphorically throw furniture up against doors to barracade myself from the invasion force on the horizon. I love you all. And I know you would do for me everything that I would do for you. But I only know that in my head. The rest of me doesn't know yous guys from a swarm of Klingons or Stormtroopers. Once I get the internal battle under control I will report back. I may also ask yous for some help.

ps. I do see the irony in such a vulnerable post after complaining that I am disected at every turn. Part of dealing with the emotions is seeing how much of it is in my head. And to determine if my habitual retreating contributes to the intensity behind feeling so attacked and alone. But then again... oh bother. I don't have a clue.