The Monster at the Dinner Table

You are called into a room.

This action could take many forms.

Sometimes, you are suddenly, literally, pulled out of bed by the arm or the hair and forced to sit in the direct sight of something you know is anything but good.

Sometimes, you are just called by your name. Making you unaware as to what is to come in the very near future. You walk into the situation completely ungaurded, and that poses a very big problem.

And other times, sometimes the worst of times, the dinner table is set.

You sit down, your heart pounding...there is this mixture of anger, anxiety, frustration, and sadness in your brain that keeps you from thinking straight.

It used to be tears, at this point, even though nothing has been said, I would already feel myself on the very edge of the cliff that marks an emotional breakdown.

Recently however, it has been anger. Instead of feeling tears spring up in my eyes, I feel my whole body rise a few degrees in temperature. My eyebrows furrow, and I just stare at the floor, ready to take whatever is about to be said; whatever attack is about to ensue.

Overall though, through the anger or the sadness, there is nervousness and anxiety. No matter what countenance I happen to be presenting, no matter what mask I happen to be wearing, I start to scratch at my hands or arms. It's odd, I know, but that's just my instinct. Providing pain, or some feeling, keeps me rooted to reality. The repetative motions keep me focused on something else.

I know at this point, that there is no fighting back...nobody is going to listen, and if you say anything you are just dismissed as disrespectful.

Respect, that ever-so-important word, a word that has a definition to me, that most people probably wouldn't understand.

"Stand up for yourself, show yourself some respect," that all sounds fine and dandy, but this is something that I don't think, at this point anyway, I am capable of.

You either fidget in your seat on the couch, afraid to relax for one second, terrified that the second you put your gaurd down is the second that the storm will begin.

It's like when you are waiting at the airport, in front of your gate, and you are rediculously thirsty. A location where you get a drink is not necessarily close by, but is not necessarily far away either. You could go there and get back in time, but what if something happens where they will start boarding early? So you sit there, and minutes pass by...time in which you could be getting that drink you so desperately want, but now that some time has passed you are that much closer to boarding,

and the cycle starts over again.

Keeping your gaurd up, holding an act in place is exhausting, but you do it because you have to.

If you have had the before hand warning, signified by a set dinner table, you know you have the time it takes to eat your food to prepare yourself for what is to come.

But you can't bring yourself to eat a thing, you just poke at the food on your plate nervously until someone comments on your "odd behavior."

Either that, or for that window of time, you pretend that everything is normal. You just convince yourself that this time, you are just having dinner; this time, everything will turn out okay, and sooner or later what you have been waiting for, the reason you have been sitting on the edge of your seat this whole time, is there.

And so it begins.

No matter what the accusation is, no matter who it applies to. It is still taken personally. That is not the intention, I'm sure, but that is just the way it turns out.

You are spoken to in even tones, probably something that wouldn't have any lasting effect on others, but is worse then screaming could ever be to me. Every word hits you, and you just sit there and stare blankly in front of you...but never directly at the speaker.

Sometimes they will say, "Look at me when I say this, Tia, look at me in the eye," and instead you look at the rims of their glasses, or something else that puts off the illusion that you are doing what they asked.

Sometimes it just seems unfair, the topic at hand has nothing, or little to do with you...It's something that isn't directly your fault.

Money problems, the condemnable house falling apart around you, their depression...

All things that shouldn't be your fault, things that aren't your mistake.

However, over the course of time, after being present for these "rants" over and over again, these things to become your fault. You accept that your existance is the cause.

When it is over, you shut yourself away. You find somewhere to crawl into and hide. A closet, underneath your bed, in the car, and there you either fume or cry.

A rediculous fear over the dinner table, how funny.