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 Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:47 am
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So, I was waiting to start this journal almost since I was invited to join this Guild! I wanted to start it after Thanksgiving because on the 23 is my year and a half of sobriety. But I just can't wait that long. So YAY!! Happy 18 Months Sober to Me!! HAHAHA! rofl 4laugh rofl 4laugh
I don't know if any of you ladies here have much experience with alcoholism or addictions. Its a touchy subject especially if you are the loved one of an addict. But I for one do not believe that it should be shied away from or that anyone should be made to feel bad or ashamed. We all have our own struggles in life, some of us just handle them better than others. Somehow, don't ask me how, but somehow there are people who can go through the shittiest situations and still come out of it semi-clean. They can get tossed around and pick themselves back up with relatively little damage. I can't begin to tell you how I envy these extraordinary people!
My whole life was a stewing pot of misery. I couldn't find a purpose for the life of me and the life of me was at stake! I couldn't relate to any of the youngsters because I was not like them. They were carefree, happy, innocent... all of them protected (at least I thought at the time).
I had a secret. A deep, damning secret. I didn't even know that's what it was. I was a little child (I was a FRICKING LITTLE CHILD!!!!) I never should have been exposed to that! Least of all by someone who was trusted by myself (at first) and my entire family, inclining them to leave me alone without any second thought of the consequences. Who knew? Who would have expected my uncle (my mother's last living brother) to do those things to his toddling niece? (That's right, I'm the Uncle Issues emo girl!) I, sure as hell didn't, until it happened. And continued to happen until I was 13! Now anyone who has gone through this type abuse doesn't have to ask WHY I never SAID anything about it to my parents. (I'll leave that whole issue for tackling in a later post right now I'm exploring the foundation of my drinking problem-- the catalyst-- all other issues will be explored as thoroughly as my integrity can take in time because I HAVE to. This is healing after I've detached some from the program. Continued self-counseling. Never stop working on yourself. It's when you forget what you're trying to do that you fall back into old patterns.)
Now when the sexual abuse ended I didn't ask why. Or wonder what happened for very long. I was elated! I was finally too old for him. I could stop holding onto this secret and figure out how to start living my life. It was like coming home from war. The constant looking over my shoulder, the being on edge. shaky fear that anything could happen at any time was dissipating. I could breath again! I think I cried the first night I forgot to be afraid. All I knew was that I was free.
But that freedom came with a soul-selling price tag.
My family was holed up in a motel for a few weeks while our ceiling was being repaired (the monsoon had flooded the A/C ducts and caused the ceiling to cave into the living room.) My elderly grandmother couldn't really handle the motel so she stayed at my brother's house next to our's. My abuses occurred when my uncle would come to visit my grandma at our house.... My brother had a 6yr old daughter, my niece.... Put a hen in front of a fox.... -_-
My mother was vehement!
No way her brother did this! There's just NO way! My niece's mother, my sister-in-law, had to have told her to say he touched her because... er, cus she doesn't like having to take care of my grandma. Now the kind of woman my sister in law is this was a very good possibility! That is one conniving, selfish woman!! lemme tell ya! She uses others to get what she wants and she's a lazy, greedy... well, I'll let you use your imagination for the appropriate word. And maybe, MAYBE I would have been able to believe that was what happened. That it was made up, a lie. They even took her to the hospital and the rape kit came back negative. This doesn't mean he didn't do anything to her! Just that there's no evidence...or maybe they caught him in time... this time. But she was dismissed. The whole thing was brushed under the carpet.
This is the moment of damnation for me.
I should have said something. I should have stood up and said "no she's not lying he did it to me. Listen to her!"
But I didn't.
Instead I let her take the heat. Be called a liar or a silly little girl... Because I just wanted OUT! I just wanted to try and forget and move on with my life. I didn't want to have to relive those moments in a courtroom, or for the first time to my mom! I was still having flashbacks. Least of all I didn't need the world to know the secret I had sacrificed my childhood to keep! There had to be some meaning to those lost 10 years... I had nothing else and I wasn't going to give away the little bit of contentment I had finally FINALLY found. That part of my life was over, painfully done, I didn't want to dive back in, in any fashion! I was scared...
But how scared was she? Alone. Having to deal with it by herself. I knew-- I KNEW-- he kept doing things to her. He may have waited for the heat to die down but I KNOW he didn't leave her alone. She's almost an adult now, almost 18 and I can see the scars on her soul as visibly as I carry mine around. She's a damaged girl too and I know who inflicted those wounds. And I also know I allowed it....
I let what happened to me happen to someone in my family.
I threw an innocent girl to the wolves.... No.... I replaced myself with her. Supplanted her there in my spot. What a fool I was! Thinking it just ended. No, he found someone else. Better me than anyone else, hell, I was "used" to it wasn't I? WHY? ******** WHY? Did I have to be such a coward!
It was my fault. It was all my fault.....
The abyss can be comforting if you think you belong there.
I punished myself relentlessly thereafter. I slashed my wrists until there was no way I could hide them anymore... and then I kept slashing. Let the world see my hate, its all directed at myself anyways... who care's? I'm not hurting you... but I will if you get too far into my business... I hate the world. This pointless place where pointless people congregate... People that just want to hurt other people. ******** it all! Let it all burn! I'll be the lightning that strikes the tree...
I took my first drink at 15 and pretty much never stopped until 18 months ago. The things I have done while intoxicated... I can only hang my head low at the things I do remember and even lower at those I don't.
I was a bad person.
No if ands or buts about it. I turned into the kind of person I despise, purposefully. Alcohol was a motivating factor but I chose to drink, I chose to let go. It caught me in its clutches and I needed it to function the way I WANTED to function. I wanted to punish myself, and yet I wanted to forget.
Alcohol provided both escapes......
I'm gonna stop here. I need to stop and breath again and walk around for a moment.... I've been wanting to really get this out for SOOO long and now I did and... Now I need to walk around without that heavy weight for a minute! lol
Thank you for providing me the opportunity to share my experiences! IAGT and Gaia are awesome!
Go ahead and comment if you like.... 4laugh
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:00 pm
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The_9th_Doctors_Rose Crew
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:06 pm
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:18 pm
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 7:09 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:17 pm
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I was the quiet, picked on nerdy girl as a child and teen. My secret kept me from being able to open up to other kids and relate. I was called shy but that wasn't entirely true. There was so much I was dying to say! So much I wanted to shout or share. But that meant attention. People might start knowing I was there and thus start asking questions. Who am I? What do I do? What's wrong with me? Why am I so different?
I couldn't run the risk someone might find out about my shame. After all it was MY shame. My fault. I was obviously doing something to cause all this. I had to be! Why would it be happening otherwise? So I just kept my mouth shut. For years I was quiet to the world, but loud to my friends.
My friends knew I wasn't shy. The few people who took the time to get to know me found me pleasant (for whatever reason) and knew I wasn't just a shy little chubby girl. They had already proven themselves to me just by sticking around. They saw a deeper part of me than the surface and didn't run away screaming. They were okay. I could open up to them and be me! ...But at the end of the day they always went away back to their homes and my freedom was short-lived.
After the sexual abuse stopped I spend two years really searching myself for who I was. I had no identity of my own, see. I wasn't a normal girl that occasionally had bad stuff done to her. I was a plaything that occasionally had normal days with other kids. Now that I was no longer someone's toy how did I become my own person? Especially after I had alienated myself socially for so long; during the years that it was most pivotal for me to learn social integration... All I knew, at that point, was I made it this far and hopefully it wouldn't happen again.
I was terribly depressed. Repressing 10 years of memories and a whole new arrival of guilt is exhausting! Then there was that screaming, crying little girl, the vestiges of me, that kept asking "Why? why? Oh why me!? Tell me!" I hadn't faced what had happened I was just trying to get away from it. SO much pain was still there. That little girl that was abused hadn't gotten any closer, any answers and definitely no comfort afterward. She just got told (by me) to shut up and deal with it. Some nights I couldn't differentiate her face from that of my niece's. I'd wake up with it difficult to breath... I cried a lot. Just cried and cried and listened to music and cried some more. But music wasn't always a remedy. Songs like "Loser" became a scary suicide note. The first time I tried to kill myself, really tried to kill myself, was to that song. I don't blame music at all! Music is an art and art is meant to be interpreted. No one's view is right, not even the music maker! They pour their souls out and this is what comes out at the time. Emotions are ever-changing and as music is so emotional there can't be a wrong or right, no perfection. Music just is. (So really ******** off all you "must-love-this-type-of-music-and-can't-like-that-kind-for-some-retarded-reason" people!)I took this song to a crazy level!
But the blade was too dull. Who would have thought? I had a nasty red scrape across my neck that I hid with jackets, high-collar shirts and my own hair. Yeah, I tried to slit my own throat. I wanted a really nasty death, something I thought I deserved! I hated me! I was stupid, I was "a ******** fatass", I was dirty. So dirty. One day I'd have to tell the person I fall in love with what happened to me and then what? Then what!? gonk Would they want me after that? Hell, I wouldn't want me! (But I hated me, see? Unable to be unbiased about myself.) Would anyone even be able to fall for something like me? I figured everyone could see my scars, everyone could see that I was somehow tainted even though I tried very hard to conceal it. I was a terrible failure at that. As I was at life. I attempted suicide a couple more times (sleeping pills, wrist slitting) before I finally broke down to my mom and told her if she didn't find me some help I'd probably die.
Thus began my years of counseling. (That's private. It just is.)
Junior High was turmoil! But there were a few good things:
Before I left public school in 8h grade I basically headed a group of rejects. About a dozen of the outcasts from that grade. We weren't the kids the cool kids made fun! Oh no! We were far less popular than that. Beyond notice or acknowledgement of the cool kids and nearly anyone else. But I noticed these rejects and out of pure loneliness I forced my presence upon them. Yeah, I eavesdropped on their convos and interjected myself. It was really quite rude but they allowed it for some reason. sweatdrop We were the 'invisibles', only together did we get noticed. And together we were the biggest goofballs! Alive at last because finally someone noticed the masks we wear is not our true selves. We accepted each other (most times, hey, we were human, we had our moments!) when the others didn't. For one whole school year I had moments (short but they were there) where I might have actually been happy...
I missed that after I left school. But I had to get out of that situation. I had to get away! I wondered why but I think its because now I finally had a group of real friends. I had one or two friends here and there when I was little, mostly Andrea, but never this huge group and never at one time! They were all accepting me for who I was when I was with them and I felt I owed it to them to be honest. None of them knew how I was when I was alone. Oh no! They didn't know I was a cutter, they didn't know about my past... and I had no way of knowing how they would react if they did know! They could cast me out! emotion_0A0 And then where would I go?? I didn't want to risk that (are we seeing a pattern here?) I might as well go far away where I can start over a new with whatever identity I created. (I was still under the impression I was the only one this ever happened to. I thought was alone in my pain.)
So I went all the way across the country to boarding school in North Dakota. From AZ to ND! What a move! It was too much. The school was great! The staff was awesome! Compared to Coolidge? Oh man this school was paradise! But the kids sucked... Trouble children from all over the US. And worst (to me because of how I was raised) they were ALL Native American! And so ingun lol. So prejudice against over races! I always lived in a melting pot; though I lived on the reservation I went to Coolidge school with all the other kids. The man who raised me was not my father but I call him my dad and he was white. I wasn't used to one culture. One "kind of people". And the kids were bratty. No other word for it. I felt like I was surrounded by squabbling toddlers who somehow happened to be going through puberty at the same time! I couldn't handle it. I came home after two weeks.
I didn't know what to do after that. Coolidge and Florence schools had nothing for me. I was far too advanced! I was always one of the top students in my classes even though I attended class only about 35% of the time. The rest I missed due to illness and overall depression. They had taught me everything and weren't willing to go through the trouble of learning anything new to teach. This was/is and always will be Coolidge School. The popularity contest matters, the sports teams and rich kids get the breaks and that's just how it goes. This town is run by those kinds of people and until they die and someone better takes over it always will be. But they teach their heirs to be like them and so it will never end. This is Coolidge...
I home-schooled by mail for a time. But then they needed $200 and living came first. And there was the whole social thing. I yearned for friends! This was before everyone and their 2 year old sister had a cell phone. They had lives and I wasn't as easily available anymore. We lost touch. I became increasingly lonely... increasingly dark.
Then my dad bought me a computer and I dove into that virtual world and found something that probably saved my life! I discovered Bolt.com, one of the coolest social networking sites at the time, and with it people like me! I found role-players! Goofballs! Overall cool people! I found the other rejects the world had regurgitated. Its like they all congregated in the one place... I found the first haven outside my own mind! I always feel like the internet means more to me than most. Its more than a mass networking of computers... Its here I found out how to really speak to people. How to make friends without forcing myself on them (that's a scary term to use on myself.) How to open up. How to stand up for myself (early flame wars!) Even how to be a leader by Founding my own Clubs, organising my own RPG groups. The people I met were highly individual, (I loved it!) I had to figure out how to get them all to work together without sacrificing any of that individuality because, hey, we had missions, you know!?
My little place on the internet gave me something to wake up for. It gave me a momentary purpose, as small and insignificant as it may seem to others. Sometimes that's all that you need! Sometimes that little bit of reason, as unreasonable as it may be to everyone else, can give someone the time they need to realise bigger things! I discovered my love for web building. I realised I have skills. There are things I am good at and things I can get way better at if I keep working at it. Oddly of all I realised there are people out there who can like me without ever seeing my face. I didn't need a mask while on the internet. It was small but it was my first step towards: I DON"T NEED A MASK PERIOD. I was growing ^_^ Hell yeah! And it was on my own.
The internet and social networking sites was the first thing that really helped me come into my own, as they say. Though I can't condone everything; it can be extremely dangerous, as we all know, but so can pretty much anything. And there are people, bless them, who are just stupid and will use it in stupid ways to spread stupidity... but then again thats just everywhere! For me the internet was a vat of open knowledge waiting for me to delve into it! I tried going back to public school, charter school but lasted not long. They still had nothing to teach me even after a four year leave!
I got into an Adult Literary program in the same building as my recovery center and after eight months of studying, mostly math, I earned my GED, January of this year. I never had to study so hard for ANY test! Public schools aren't the bees ******** knees and a high school diploma isn't the shizznit! I never felt like they were preparing me for anything I could use in life! Sure there are social rankings and conformities but HS was basically a ******** popularity campaign when I was there (ever ever so shortly), when my brothers and bf were there, when my MOM was there and even now... GED is a lot of common sense. A lot of applied s**t. Get it. Get out. Get on with life. LIFE! Not High School.
I don't think I would have made it in HS for long. I would have killed someone and then myself. My life would have been much different if I had wasted away in my public high school. -_- Ha! I don't want to sound like I'm pro-dropout or anti-education or whatever! Knowledge is important! Learning is important! Get smart because there are far too many stupid people out there.
But that's just it: There are far too many stupid people out there who went to public high school!!
I'm just one that didn't and this is how I turned out.
I really don't know how this got into that. Lol but oh well, can't always control the flow of your writing. When it wants to take flight I say let it... as long as you don't go drifting off too far into the clouds... 4laugh Analogies! emotion_bigheart 'em! This entry was kinda all over the place as is my mindframe today... smile Oh well! Cheers! whee
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 12:51 pm
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A little off topic of the alcoholism-themed idea but addiction oriented.
Oh its just been a tough couple of days. Yesterday was the first day my bf has gone without a cigarette in like six years! Suffice to say it was not an enjoyable day. We've been talking about quitting cigarettes for the past year and though he's made remarks and small attempts we've never actually gone about it just fully. Yesterday we did.... *sigh* I was on edge too, I was having nicotine withdrawals as well and I never should have said that snide remark. I knew it was gonna get him upset but I wasn't prepared for that! For this....
He just went off! Slamming doors, shouting at me and I mean freaking screaming at me! We never do that, when we're angry with each other usually our tones get lower and flatter. But he was shouting "don't talk to me, SHUT UP!" Like OMG! That's so not my Robert... he's always clear-headed, sometimes annoying so... -_- Stupid addiction.
Anyways I wrote this in my journal and felt like sharing it here to:
I was never and I mean never the type to let any man tell me what to do or dictate the state of my conscience. I lived under the control of a man who I was supposed to trust from childhood to adolescence and when I finally got my life into my hands I swore no d**k was ever going to take that away.
I was wrong of course. Like it appears I am quite often... So many times in my life have I given a man my trust only to have him abuse it and often my body along with it. I was a thing to be used by men. A tiny, insecure thing that came alive with the introduction of alcohol. "Instant ******** toy-- just add liquor!" But I would drop them as soon as I realized that was what was happening. I never catered to those men afterwards, never groveled at their feet to take me back because they were the best I could do. No! I knew I deserved better than to be treated that way by them. I had to problem saying ******** you and walking out. That was my pride and it was all I had!
...that was back when my pride was all I had....
Now....
My boyfriend is downright awesome! I don't say that under the pretext that he might read my journal, no, I actually mean it. He sneaked up out of the darkness and surprised the hell out of me! Became everything I needed and turned out to be a whole of a lot of what I dreamed about in a guy. He has the mysterious ability to make me start drooling over him just by raising an eyebrow and grinning. XD In the, ahem hehe, Immortal words of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Artemis character,
Quote: "There's nothing she enjoyed more than watching him move."
He's there for me and we're able to talk about a great deal many more things that most couples find scary territory and never even try to drift that way. He's so smart and he can be the sweetest guy when he really tries...
But there are times when he makes me feel like I want to rip out my hair, both in frustration and despair! Guys are notoriously bad with the subtle things us women do. That's the standing joke about men and women. But there are times when if I didn't actually get his attention and say "hey, I'm upset because (fill in blank)" he wouldn't have even realised a thing was wrong. No matter I'm holding my head and softly weeping, or pacing, or even making "AHH!" sounds. He's just not paying attention. Or he just doesn't get it. And then there are times when I bring it to his attention and its something I really feel like if I just got any kind of apology I could drop the matter and it would be fine, but he just stops and sits and thinks without saying anything. Constantly analyzing! He took psychology for awhile so I get why he does that... (but sometimes I feel like I'm always being monitored. I'm adjusted to it I guess, I had alot of counselors in my time. But I'm his girlfriend not his patient, dammit!) I understand he looks at things differently than most so I can't expect what is to be expected...
But I shouldn't have to always be the one to initiate apologies! I say things that set him off sometimes subconsciously on purpose because I'm just so frustrated with the situation. I love him... I didn't know I would love him so much! This has never been me. Giving in first just so we can end this dumb fight. He means so much to me, his opinion doesn't dictate the way I live but it so very important to me that it can interfere with it. I only have myself to 'blame' for giving him that power. But I gave it to him, willingly and I have no plans on taking it back. It has its upsides; he's a very intelligent person (which is partly responsible for his lack of social understanding, any fellow dweebs can relate) he has very valid opinions. He helps me look outside the box on many issues and come to a more rounded conclusion than just a set, single-minded one. I don't want to not care about what he thinks or feels.
I just wish he could be more attentive to what I'm thinking or feeling.
Ha, doesn't that sound like the cries of a billion lovelorn women before me? Men and women come to conclusions differently, that's just how it goes. Our thinking processes are different. They had to be to allow us to survive in the very beginning of humanity; when women were valued as able to bear children and men hunted for them and protected them. It was just survival then. Women had to feel and notice emotions to communicate and raise their children, men had to be able to react to a situation on the fly without emotions misguiding them: hunter/gatherer/protector. But times have changed and the glory of humans is we're supposed to be highly adaptable.
When I say I hurt. When I say you hurt me. That should merit an "I'm sorry". Granted maybe I have to explain myself first. Maybe I do have to explain why because women are emotional and sometimes, yes, I get upset about molehills... But when its understood that he did something, a number of things, to hurt and upset me; when its understood that he behaved in a negative manner that I did not deserve he should say "baby, I'm sorry." Not in his head. Not by a few mundane actions: by hugging me or giving me a kiss. NO. Sometimes you need to HEAR IT.
Without having to ask for it....
I love you, baby, but this time you are wrong.
Music to go along with this mood: Heart - "Crazy On You"
http://youtu.be/OZuW6BH_Vak
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