Soul Shattered Phoenix

I can’t really describe what it has been like here. 

It has been a roller-coaster, a whirlwind,  a sanctuary, a prison and big brother house to label a few descriptors if I were to portray the last few weeks of my time at the refuge.

The emotions have come rolling in thick and fast.  Warm smiles and embraces enveloping me on my arrival quickly waned away as the days rushed by. One of the residents clearly offput by my untimely arrival for her seemingly complex personal circumstances.  I do my best in these scenarios.  I am not unversed in mental health, poverty, broken families,  abusive relationships, and living in an all woman shared household.  I’m well aware of the anxiety that comes with any change.

Here I was, a shattered heap.  Sat in my chair, a devastated but composed mess in the middle of the kitchen.  Confronted by Adele, who was pacing up and down irritably and visibly distressed by my late, ‘unannounced’ arrival. I say unannounced, I was.  I was welcomed pleasantly earlier and had already been shown around and unloaded the very few belongings that I had managed to escape with.  Dirty now, unwashed, but folded and arranged neatly. This was my entire life in a couple of bedraggled and torn bags.  No matter how broken and dishevelled I was, I was not going to let the little I had left of me crumble apart too.   Adele had been out when I arrived, I couldn’t help that.

Rebecca and I had been chatting and just getting to know each other whilst I unloaded the bag of reduced groceries that Amanda had blessed me with as she sent me off on my way. I had lucked out, a bag full of reduced vegan sandwiches and salads. Rebecca was brooding over the kettle and showing me around the communal kitchen as Adele burst in incandescently.   She stopped and turned her head abruptly as she stomped towards, and right past my chair.  Then made a swift about-turn back towards Rebecca’s direction. “Who’s that? Is she new?” She demanded.

“This is Meghan, she got here today,” Rebecca gestured towards me as if to suggest gently to Adele that she should acknowledge me somehow.

“I wasn’t told about it!”

Adele didn’t flinch. She spoke loudly, and I instantly recognised that Alicia was deaf from the way she spoke. I knew from this not to interject and introduce myself. She still had her back turned to me after all. If I can’t hear or understand someone approaching or trying to communicate with me and I can’t see them, it’s totally hopeless,  so I have to extend the same approach towards Adele.  My auditory processing disorder is now being considered as Autism alongside ADHD or AuADHD as it’s best known these days.

“What time did she get here?” She persisted, still not addressing me.

“Was there Staff here? Was Cheryl here?” The questions were rapid fire now and increasingly anxiety ridden.

“Umm, yeah. Gwenne and Allison were here, it was late though, Cheryl already went home.” Rebecca offered.

“What time was that then? I was here then.” She was becoming more fervent and no matter what Rebecca said to try and reassure her desperation,  nothing was soothing her.

After just managing an initial hello with Adele, things have stayed on the same rocky path with her ever since really. I still haven’t figured her yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried plenty of times with her, just as I would anyone. I don’t judge anyone by what anyone says to me, I like to get to know a person before I form any opinion about them.  Adele was no different. A challenge perhaps, a puzzle to piece together, but no write off just yet.

I guess it has been like that with everyone here, including Staff, Gwenne in particular.  “Never judge a book by it’s cover Michaela, never judge a book by it’s cover.”

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I still don’t know who I can or cannot trust. It comes with the territory, the history, the things that led us all here, none of us can trust each other no matter how much we desperately want to. I learned that very quickly.

Fingers singed but not burned. I withdrew and put the shutters up pretty quickly after a few things revealed themselves to be red flags rather than white ones after a few days of pattern observation.

I throw myself in wholeheartedly and have a tendency to trust, open up and overshare, more as a trauma bonding experience than anything else, however this often leaves me feeling regretful. I had been cautious with what I had offered up, but perhaps not cautious enough. These women were not necessarily here for me in the same way I would be for them, no matter how much empathy they initially attempt to display, behaviour and actions will always unravel the truth of who these women are. Rebecca had certainly shown me that. She had shown me a lot. A lot a lot.

How do I put this? There’s no gentle way of discussing my relationship with sex, or my journey with my sexuality. Rebecca had elicited some of this information out of me and I have no intention of her grasping any more. Not Rebecca. I mean, I had been tempted, for a minute or two, I’m not going to lie, The thought crossed my mind, but left just as quickly as it came. No way, no, nuh uh. I am not going there. But this is how it all started with Adele. Rebecca had been out with Felicia when I got back late one evening from my own escapades*. Felicia was wiped, she had cancelled her evening plans entirely to pull through for Rebecca, who unbeknownst to myself had been let down for her date that evening. Rebecca was, also unbeknownst to me at the time off her face on Coke. I knew she was on something, I just didn’t know what at that precise time. Somehow, in amongst Felicia handing the buck of responsibility of Rebecca duty to me, Rebecca had flashed, her rather superb breasts in my face. Can’t say I didn’t appreciate the view, if not somewhat unexpected and uncalled for.

Back to how this relates to Adele. Rebecca and I were sat outside having a cigarette in the morning a few days later. I was trying to reassure her that we were still ok and that she hadn’t ruined things the other night. Adele had been sat across from us, head in her phone puffing away on her endless pack of smokes. I don’t even remember what had led to it, but at one point I had leaned in to Rebecca with a cheeky smile, clearly more jovially than flirtatiously, but flirtatiously nonetheless. I knew the sun was across my face, and I was feeling good at this point, so I leaned in and half whispered, but loud enough for her to hear “well, I enjoyed seeing your titties.”

Choking and snorting suddenly erupted from across the round picnic bench from Adele who was spitting her can of drink out and struggling to contain her smirking. Everyone had warned me that she could hear a hell of a lot more than what she let on to, that she was always lurking, overhearing, reporting back to Staff. I was gobsmacked. How the hell did she hear that of all things? Of all the things she rudely fucking ignores all the time, across the table, in the garden, she heard me whisper. No Adele, I see you now.

*I’ll come back to this vein.