overcoming

“The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let things go.” -unknown

Friends, let me tell you…writing a blog and being angry is HARD!!! I have written and re-written this draft over the past few weeks. I have contemplated scrapping it all together, but am choosing to post and live in and feel my truth. I will apologize now for this not being quite as eloquent as I like to write. I am pissed! I am hurt! I am venting. I am telling my story. I am dying inside from a broken heart, so bear with me through this post as I want it to be me – raw and real, and 100% honest. I know “some” may think this post belongs in a journal more than my blog; but sometimes, life is messy and that’s that. I’m not going to sensor myself to satisfy anyone else. Basically, if you don’t like what I have to say then stop reading my blog.

When I last wrote, I wrote of the way I had been so sorely mistreated, cheated on and lied to, and the turmoil that I have lived in for 11 years. I then made a public “blast” on social media declaring the changes I was making in my world. Unfortunately, the person on the other end of my story was less than pleased with what I shared with the world, even though it was extremely mild and not even close to the level of detail I could or probably should give, but probably never will. “It’s embarrassing.” “You did this so my family would see it.” “You’re just trying to start trouble for me.” “You just want sympathy.” “You’re a liar.” …and on and on it went, along with threats like “I’ll knock your teeth out”, “You’ll wish you’d never met me” – should I decide to post any more. I don’t care what he says, thinks or does at this stage and he won’t stop me from telling our story. If he thinks that I am not already sorry I met him, reading this will correct his misconception. I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life as I do believing his lies. My intent is to tell my story, where we are both at fault, not necessarily to smear his name. He is such a narcissist, he believes this blog is for his demise…which is pretty sad in itself…because that is really not the case. You, the reader, will form your own thoughts from what I write and he is assuming it won’t go his way, which is probably a decent bet. Anyway, this is part of my life story…as are the other ~30 posts that are not about him. So, on we go…

Needless to say the past couple of months have been really, really hard for me. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt pain that compares. I have a little emotional whiplash from all the back and forth, the lies, and the new discoveries. Yes, I did take myself on a couple of trips to relax, but I didn’t have a lobotomy! Apparently, the mind holds onto the most ragged, painful footage and replays it on a loop, even at the beach, much to my dismay. Enter tequila!! I mean, it’s vacation, come on! I am not going to lie, I did try to drink my worries away a time or two while on vaca, but I am not the kind of person that can just bury the hurt anymore. I lived a lot of my years practicing this and while it worked as a younger woman, the hurt would manifest itself in numerous other ways in my body, therefore, I do not feel it is a wildly successful method I would recommend to others. Talking…crying…talking…get angry…more talking…more crying…this is a pattern that seems to produce some benefit! I didn’t do any crying in MX, but we did a fair amount of talking and I did a ton of thinking. “How do I get thru this? Is he right? Was this my fault? What if it really wasn’t what it seems? Am I sure I’m done? Maybe I can I get over this and how can I still make it work?” Yes, you read that right. I am ashamed to admit, I have considered and thought about how I could still make it work. That is what 11 years of loving a narcissist and being trauma bonded with somebody will do to you.

I have grown a lot over the past couple of years while we have been apart more than we were together. During that time, I studied a lot of different things…tactics, situations, self-help, etc. Information overload!! Our time apart allowed me to realize the confidence I let him take from me is still in there and I do not have to live in constant unrest and turmoil, but it hasn’t stopped me from missing the things about him that I loved. I truly loved him and I have tried so many practices to get him out of my system to no avail. I am, however, a little smarter now and my head can outsmart my heart to look for the things I cannot let go of. So, I found the PROOF…things I couldn’t unsee and things he was unable to lie his way out of…like catching him with another woman and pictures of him vacationing with his “ex” and their kid! SURPRISE! Who knew they were still playing family?? Not me and not the neighbor he was sleeping with! So me writing about our situation and his antics got me the threats as I already mentioned, but they can put up pics of “family” vacation and let ME look like the unknowing fool?! What in the actual fuck is that??? I guess he believes that being presented with such pictures gave me no heartburn or embarrassment at all. His response/justification – “There’s nothing romantic between us.” “We only co-parent.” “She doesn’t even use social media.” I’d like to believe it’s innocent but come on…he has her stringing along just the same as he has had me and God knows who else. What he never accounts for is her lack of restraint for sharing these photos online, hoping that I will see them. She plays these games for my benefit which is fine, I have dealt with it for years, because her man left her for me…but the joke is on me because he then left me too, for the trailer trash neighbor. Let’s add a twist…the neighbor trash that he was sleeping with (yep, that’s 3 women) is the one who pointed me to the sweet family pictures asking me what the deal is. Can you say shady, lying narcissist?! The new girlfriend asking the old girlfriend about the baby mama. Let that sink in for a moment. That’s who we’re dealing with here.

The number of lies that have surfaced this summer are just unbelievable. He is truly living multiple lives and I feel like maybe I ever even knew him. Whether I did or I didn’t, I am grieving what I believed we had. Remember, I loved him and I gave him ALL of me, even if he didn’t reciprocate. It’s hard to break up with your best friend. This is what gets me the most I think. We talked all the time, but he was repeating himself or swearing he told me something he didn’t tell me. It became clear to me he was talking to somebody else, but he denied it of course. He swore to me he hadn’t been with anyone since we split up and he didn’t want another woman, didn’t need another woman. I could tell…this time, it just didn’t flow like it used to and too much hurt has been done. He let another woman into his world and there’s really no coming back from that for me. Looking back, the signs were all there but we’d been in that place so many times before and we always found our way back. Not this time, he was different and now I know why. One word: Heather.

He wasn’t there for a life threatening and life changing surgery I had in March. I told him I would not have anything to do with him if he wasn’t there and he made his choice and it wasn’t me. I went thru surgery and the first 6 weeks of healing, without a word from him beyond making sure I was alive the first night. His last text I just didn’t respond to so the communication dropped. He didn’t even try again. That’s not love. Later, he tried to tell me he was so sick and couldn’t visit me, but he was well enough to go riding with friends 2 days after surgery. I was in the hospital for 4 days and had help for 3 weeks and not one single offer or word from him for 6 weeks. I felt pretty confident he had someone else because his lack of interest in me had never been like this before. My first outing for drinks was a few weeks later and I was feeling pretty good both physically and mentally. He had been gone again for almost 2 months and I was determined to move on. We went out to a bar right by my house, we met some fun guys and I actually exchanged numbers with someone. No harm, no foul…I am a single woman, right? “HE” chose to walk out on me knowing the consequences. So I was single. Not by choice, but nonetheless, single. The very next day…there he is, on my phone. Texting me a song that made him think of me. I listened to the song and my mistake? I responded. Less than 2 weeks later I blew off the guy that I met and was talking about working things out with “him”, again. In the meantime, he’s sleeping with the neighbor and vacationing with his ex while I sit here like a fool thinking about how to make it right. How can I be so damn stupid? And, the pattern continued…

Funny enough, he has threatened to tell his version of our story. Why he threatens it I am unclear…I actually would welcome that. I’ve encouraged him to tell “his side” and what he accuses me of. I would love for him to ask around, accuse me of things and get the truth. He doesn’t want the truth because I don’t do the things he accuses me of and in his heart he knows that but he will never admit it. He projects like the typical narcissist. But the real reason he will never do it? Why he will never put it all out there… He can’t tell his version without telling on himself. He has multiple relationships going on, sadly. So he will continue with his current MO, which is just talk shit about me to his little group of friends who all believe what he says about me because they don’t know me well and they clearly don’t know the real him. Few know who he truly is, but I do. Those that do, and condone it, are no better. I am far from perfect here…I’ve been a real bitch, but not until I endured years of this abuse and manipulation from him. I hate that he has the ability to turn me into a version of a crazy bitch that I have no desire to be! He is furious I am telling my story and I don’t care. He can bad mouth me all he wants. I am no angel and there have been plenty of actions that I regret, but I have never cheated on him, ever. I don’t make any claim that he is 100% at fault but I have never let another man into my life and heart. He crossed the line that I never thought he would cross. I thought I was different…I thought I was special to him. I wasn’t.

I read something this morning that hit home with me in a pretty solid way. The childhood game of keep away, but in a much different sense than played before. To paraphrase: He will never cop to playing a game of any sort, so I must stop playing. I can’t bring up past things because he will always tell me I’m wrong, lying or crazy. I can’t expect him to acknowledge or take responsibility for anything because, according to him, he didn’t do it. He will occasionally pretend to make an effort but I will always pay the price for trying to bring the relationship to a “healthy” place. In the unconscious mind people like this are driven by a compulsion to make the partner feel as dirty and flawed as they feel inside. The fake acknowledgements and efforts are to keep us in the game. Wow. I just sat back and thought…this is so accurate. He is the master and I can’t win, so I forfeit this game.

To those who actually know me reading this, I hope you can support me and believe in me when it gets ugly because when he sees this and that I intend to write more, he will retaliate however he can without giving himself away. He has already warned me but I think this is my right to tell the story and maybe it helps someone else get out of a relationship that isn’t the healthiest. Maybe it helps somebody realize they are being played and they deserve more. I believe in my friends and family and have no concerns about his lies. For those reading this who don’t actually know me, I hope that you can recognize some of the things I share as feelings you have or may recognize in yourself or in someone you love. Reach out to your support system and get the help. Don’t sit in it alone, ask for support. This has been one of the hardest things for me recently, asking for support. I’ve never been one to bother people with my needs, I just figure it out. No more. People offer for a reason, take them up on it. My Mexico travel companion shared with me how it made her feel so filled up when she is able to help somebody in need and this is so true! Our friends offer because they love us, return the love by receiving what they have to offer. It will be a gift to both of you.

Thank you for hopping into my crazy world for a moment and taking in the words I share from my heart. Much love to all and I will get thru this!

“One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which to burn.” -Oprah Winfrey

It seems like this would be a pretty self-explanatory thing, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not! When we meet somebody new, we engage in a little chatter and then stand together at the crossroads. What’s next? Can I see you as my person or do we go our separate ways now and save a lot of money on awkward dinners, and time you’ll never get back, filled by lackluster conversation? And then…there he was. It was love at first sight and there was no denying it, by either of us. My tall dark and handsome biker with the whitest, sexiest smile I had ever seen. What I felt that day was unexplainable, and over the next 11 years I followed him into the fire where I would be forever choked by the smoke from the bridge he was actively burning by being with me.

2021 was not kind to so many people and I know that my pain and suffering has been nothing compared to many, but it’s up to me to share MY story and for others to share their stories. I say this to acknowledge all of the tragedy that has taken place in the world and I know in the grand scheme of things, my hurting, while still very real, is not as tragic as many others have had to face or are still facing. For these people, I pray. That being said, my world was quite shaken up over the past 18 months and I am entitled to hurt and heal just like everybody else! I’ve dealt with major surgery and am in recovery, I’ve attended way too many funerals, celebrations of life or memorials, and I’ve had my heart shattered, again, to put it mildly. Beyond this gloom and doom, I’ve also had some amazing accomplishments during this time! I bought the house I plan to retire in with room for the whole family and I took a fantastic promotion within my company. I bought my first sports car (can you say mid-life crisis?) as my 50th birthday present and threw myself one hell of a house party! I was blessed with some amazing friends and family surrounding me while I had a major surgery to rid me of the chronic pain I’ve endured for the past several years! (More to come on this in another entry.) When I put it on paper, there are more positives than negatives…and my eyes can read that, but my heart says something else, a piece of me was missing. While I am praising Jesus every single day for all of the blessings, I am hurting inside…every single day and not just a little bit.

How did I end up here, again? I was 6 months out of our most recent break-up when I got sucked back in. Truth be told, I was sad for most of that time, and struggled to do more than get out of bed and get to my desk to work. As the days went on, and he wasn’t part of my world, I was starting to have more good days than bad. I felt like I was coming back to life and as if he could smell my hope, he came back around to tear me back down. I missed him so much it hurt and here he is, again. I missed my partner, my best friend who knew all of my pains and fears. He said it best, it felt comforting to be talking again, it’s like home. (Keep in mind I came from a really fucked up home.) I really didn’t tell anybody we were talking again because I didn’t want to see the faces of disappointment followed by the million dollar question…why am I, once again, standing on the bridge I was supposed to have already burned?! I let him creep back into my heart and out the window went all of what I’d worked on for the past 6 months. I didn’t honor myself or my needs. I didn’t love or trust myself to get thru the hard times on my own. BIG mistake.

I spent 11 years with a narcissist who would gaslight me at every turn. He’d disappear for hours, lie to me about where he was and then blame me for “bitching” at him. Or, to shake it up and keep me on my toes, he would occasionally throw a love bomb my way to see if I would start the fight. He turned everything he did into tit for tat. (Granted, he had to go back 6 or 7 years to even find something that could remotely be seen as bad.) I am no angel, but I was faithful to this man and everybody knows that except him. Sadly, I don’t believe he is capable of being a real, honest, faithful MAN. So true to form he cheated, again, and this time I caught him. I have always suspected cheating but had no proof…if I got the proof, that would be it. I’m done. I’ll be ready to burn that bridge, finally. So guess what! I wasn’t ready to do burn the bridge. WHAT??? WHY??? How stupid can a woman be? I know you’re asking these questions because so did I. I wanted him to explain it away. I wanted him to tell me it isn’t true even though I had an entire conversation with her about it, as well as him. So when he told me lie I wanted to hear, I wanted him to tell me that he was sorry and would never do it again. So he told me the next lie, now what? Create my own web of lies to be with him? NO. I had to shake myself out of the bullshit. I have been trying to will someone into existence that never truly existed and begging to be lied to. Do you have any idea how hard it is to say that? To accept that as my reality? ELEVEN YEARS of my life, a decade. He didn’t truly appreciate me, and he didn’t truly love me. I was his scapegoat. I was a “fat bitch” by his words. He knows every intimate detail of my life and the abuse I endured as a little girl and he used that…he hit me everywhere he knew would leave a mark inside and a few times on the outside. What I got from him was not love. To publicly admit to all of this is so humiliating…it’s devastating. My tall, dark and handsome was not the prince I made him out to be, who I wanted him to be. He lied to me and I believed him, even when I knew better. He showed me who he was and I chose not to believe it. I buried my head in the sand, because I didn’t have proof, but now I do. I was afraid to burn the bridge because what if today is the day he’s going to change? Reality check: He will never change.

So now what? I’ve caught him red handed, I have way too much information. My hurt…my anger…my broken heart…my feelings of worthlessness…loneliness…abandonment, these feelings are mine, nobody else’s. I know that I am responsible for my own happiness! So why is it so hard to come to this conclusion and stay there? When I was growing up, I had many of the same feelings, only from much different situations. I couldn’t get away from that fast enough! So why not now? Why did I allow someone to wreak such havoc in my life instead of running away? Metaphorically of course…I know running away cures nothing! I am not sure what’s next yet…but you can believe that this won’t ever happen to me again!

I have read every self-help book out there, I have studied narcissism and multiple other character “disorders”. I see an energy healer, I meditate, I use essential oils. Shit I’m about to open a crystal farm if I thought it would help me! I’m finally accepting that this is NOT about me. This is on him. I’ve done everything I could possibly do to please him. You can’t please the narcissist and he will never be wrong even when he is caught. His ego is the size of TX and requires a lot of attention and I clearly didn’t supply enough so he found it elsewhere, as in across the street from the townhouse he’s renting with a gal I now know way too well. After my talk with her, he of course now wants to marry me and he will move asap so I can trust that he’s not seeing her. He has blocked her and never speak to her again…until the next night. Last night, he accidentally answered my facetime call with her standing there. Oops, wrong button. Red, not green. Needless to say, I am pushing this man and his toxicity out of my life, effective – already! I can sleep at night with a clear conscience because I know I never betrayed him. I loved this man with everything I had, that I know.

The bottom line is I allowed this behavior, until I didn’t. I will be writing about details and the entire situation because it helps me and I hope it will help somebody else. This isn’t to trash the other parties of the story, even though I’ve been assured he will smear my name and embarrass me, which he already has started. That’s not who I am nor is it who I want to be. I wanted him to be my life partner, be faithful to me, include me in his life and grow old with me. None of that will be happening and I have accepted it but it still hurts beyond what I can express with words.

If you are in a narcissistic relationship, or question if you are, I highly encourage you to do some research and take action before you have wasted some of the best years of your life on them. If one good thing can be that I helped somebody recognize what’s happening to them and give them the strength to get out then sharing my humiliating story with the world it is all worth it. I am raising my vibe and keeping it there! It’s time for me to GROW!! Until next time, friends…eyes open and do not let anybody gaslight or target you!!

Instability, displacement. Blessing, disaster, or a source of strength?

“Stop leaving and you will arrive.  Stop searching and you will see.  Stop running away and you will be found.”  -Unknown

It is sometimes hard to really determine what affect our past has on our current day life and relationships. If you really stop and consider it, did your upbringing guide you to strength and stability, insecurity and instability, or someplace in the middle?  I believe that we often just go through the motions of life as we grow and don’t realize the impact and work on the shortcomings that we may have developed.  This is the main reason for my blog, my months (so far) in therapy and so many of the changes taking place in my life now.  I am understanding myself better than I ever have and realizing, as I have stated in multiple other blogs, why I am the way I am and understanding many of my fears.

I believe I have mentioned before that throughout my life we moved a lot and rarely stayed in one place.  This created more issues for me than I ever realized.  It made social skills a challenge, trusting people has never been a strong point to this day.  It is hard to walk into a room and believe that you belong when you are constantly on the move and having to make new friends everywhere you go.  If you read my original blog, you know – I was born in Corpus Christi, TX, was adopted there and at 3 years old moved to Mountain Grove,  MO.  I won’t take through every single move I went through, that would be incredibly boring!!  BUT, I can tell you that in the 17 years I lived at home I lived in 10 houses (that I can remember at the moment) as well as in our camp trailer or in our van for many months and 2 additional locations as well as a lot of camp sites and road time.  My 4th grade year, I went to 3 different schools, living in 2 different states!  That year stands out for me as the hardest year of my younger years for obvious reasons, and more that will come out at a later date.  It’s so hard being the “new girl” anyway, that being the new girl in the capacity in which i was, was extremely difficult.  What do I mean by “in that capacity that I was”, right??

Well let me back up just a bit and I will explain a bit.  At 8 years old, I was a pretty well adjusted kid living in Blue Springs, MO, attending the 4th grade local elementary school, not fully aware of how abnormal and inappropriate my life was.  I knew my life was a bit crazy and things were not the same as for most others, but as I have mentioned before, I was too young to fully understand the depth of what was taking place and what the lasting affects would be.  There were a lot of things going on inside of my household that many would not believe or comprehend, things that people might say was a tall tale or a wild imagination.  Many of the things I don’t fully understand to this day myself; and yet I lived it!   While many of you may think that what I sometimes post is just family drama or dirty laundry that should be kept within the family confines, it is my story that I am sure somebody relates to.  I tell you in such detail what took place in my life because I believe that to understand me and my story, you have to know details and what feelings were inside me.  You cannot put yourself in my shoes and understand if you don’t know the feelings I had and I truly want people to understand and feel what I experienced.  So know, this is very personal and graphic for a reason.

The well adjusted kid disappeared at 8 when my somewhat normal life came to a screeching halt.  Craziness escalated when my brother Brian got married.  He had married someone that he didn’t know well enough to marry and it didn’t take long for this to become a disaster.  This quickly caught up to him and he realized he shouldn’t have married her.  I mentioned before that my dad was my hero, but Brian was my idol.  I loved him so much, I idolized him.  He was the most handsome big brother, he was cool, he had the prettiest girlfriends and I admired him so much!  And most importantly, he loved me and he protected me.  He got me out of the house when he could, he bought me things I wouldn’t otherwise get; he took care of me the best he could from a distance, since he didn’t live with us.  That year, he bought me a teddy bear that at 8 years old, was the same size as me.  I remember sleeping with this thing on top of my body because it was just too big to cuddle, but I didn’t want to miss a moment of it.  That was the coolest thing I had ever received, and today, one of my best childhood memories.  He will never know how much that bear meant to me.

Anyway…how this ties to my topic today – instability and displacement.  Brian had married and had a child with a woman that was not who or what she claimed to be.  He was so trusting and such a loving soul; he believed her, he loved her, he married her and had a child with her.  He quickly found out that she was not someone to be trusted and she was also a child abuser, abusing their new born son, my nephew Willie.  Willie was the sweetest and most handsome infant I had seen!  I loved my nephew an incredible amount and so did my entire family.  Still wondering how this applies to topic I’m sure, but keep reading and you’ll understand this sets the stage for the displacement from my home.  My sister-in-law was a very unstable young girl and severely misled my brother.  She had lied about her age, her situation and multiple other things; and she did not want the baby she had just delivered.  She called my brother at work daily, saying the baby wouldn’t stop crying so he would come home.  After some months of him bringing the baby to our house so he could go back to work, very concerning things were appearing.  Willie was crying uncontrollably at our house on a regular basis which was abnormal, after examining his body, my mom found little pin holes in his fat creases.  Having the heart he did, Brian struggled with believing his wife would do anything to harm their child and tried to figure things out – how to keep his wife happy but protect his child.  When the crying worsened, it was clear he was in pain and doctor visits determined his esophagus was burned and tests ensued to determine cause.  It was confirmed that she was sticking him with pins to make him cry and she was putting lye acid in his vitamins which was the cause of the burned throat and the stomach pains he was having.  Ultimately, my brother clearly couldn’t tolerate the abuse and made the hard but only decision he could, and took the baby and left her.  He had to find help and my parents were readily available.  He didn’t want to divorce her yet, he still wanted to understand.  Unfortunately, as he began to understand there was no option but to move toward ending their marriage and cut off all contact.  It was an incredibly difficult and tumultuous break up.  The cops were called several times for disturbing the peace and as a civil escort when she was granted visitation rights with the baby.  This was a devastating time for my family, although I had no idea how deep it would go.

I know this sounds a bit like a Lifetime movie and I have often joked about my life being like a movie.  The sad truth is, it’s not a joke.  My life truly has very much resembled a messed up movie with multiple crazy family members!  But guess what!!  That was my REAL life!  That’s the cards some of us were dealt and that makes it hard to handle but we have no choice but to handle or crumble.  I’m not a crumbler, there fore it may not have always been easy, but I handled it!  Until the past year, when I began falling apart and looking at why.

Now, this is the segway back to topic and into  our next and most significant move.  Because of the craziness happening with the baby being poisoned and his health declining, the baby’s life was in danger.  The courts wouldn’t suspend visitation rights and my brother and parents feared that one more visit with her and Willie could be dead.  Nobody was willing to take that risk, we loved him too much.  That week, we spent the week packing our home into a storage unit, and putting only what we absolutely needed to live into the van.  Leaving behind my life-size teddy bear was the hardest thing I had to do to date in my short 8 years.  While I knew we were having a serious situation, I was still a child and that bear was my favorite thing on earth.  It was symbolic of my brother’s pure love for me which was so different than the perverted and disgusting lust that my other brother had.  Two very different types of affection, one is NOT love.  In any case, my heart was broken and my parents PROMISED me I would get him (the bear) back, along with all of my toys, my bedroom and our home for that matter.  For the record, I never saw the bear or anything else including our home, again.  We packed what we needed in our van in the night and went on the run.  At this point we were fugitives of justice, considered kidnappers with a baby.

There were 5 of us in the van:  Dad, Mom, Willie (baby), Andrew (abusive brother) and me.  This series of events over the next couple of years stands out as some of the roughest times I have ever been through in my life.  I didn’t understand what was happening, I didn’t know at 8 years old what “running from the law” meant or how serious the repercussions would be!  I wish I had never learned, but eventually I did.

The only positive thing about this period of my life is that with all of the distractions and the fact that we were living in our van, on the road, there was very little opportunity for my brother to bother me with his perversion.  This allowed me to relax a little bit and try to be a kid, but I didn’t really know how to any more.

After some weeks in the van (I’m not really sure how long), on the road traveling cross country to many states and stops, we landed in Saucier, MS where my parents had some friends from when they lived in Corpus Christi who were willing to help.  We stayed on their property in a camp trailer for a short time, until we found a tiny 2 bedroom house for the 5 of us to rent.  I started school again, being my second school in the 4th grade.  The insanity of the situation we called life kept me from being able to play with friends after school or have sleep overs, so I didn’t exactly have many friends.  My parents fought too much to have anybody over anyway…it would have been mortifying for anyone to witness that.  Then, some normalcy – I got to join a basketball team, my first sport ever!  I was so excited!!  My parents came to my first game, amidst a fight, and my mom made such a horrible scene at the game that I never went back.  As you can imagine, I was incredibly uncomfortable and nervous ALL of the time.  I also had developed what, at the time they called “nervous stomach”, which kept me in pain a lot of the time.  It was a long time before I actually got to go the doctor to find out why my stomach was hurting me all the time and I was the least of my parents concern.  Ultimately I got some medication that calmed my intestines and helped the pain so I could relax as much as possible, which still wasn’t a lot.

When I think today about some of these things it blows my mind that this was my life.  So while I have not had an easy storybook life, I have had built up a lot of strength, understanding and empathy for others.  This part of my story is long from over, and I will continue in another post.  For today, my focus was to discuss instability and displacement and how it affected me.  My crazy life has offered me so many advantages and many disadvantages; I mentioned a couple above.  Feeling the comfort of a home is critical to me.  For the past year and a half, my daughter and I had been sharing a house with my friend which allowed me to get bills paid off, relax a little bit financially, but also gave me a very unsettling sense of displacement because it wasn’t mine.  I wasn’t providing for myself fully.  Last weekend I moved my daughter and myself into a new home.  I have a sense of security again that I have been missing for the past year.  I couldn’t be happier!  It is very important for me to be in control of my life now because I had no control growing up.  I have been dependent on someone else for my happiness for a lot of my life, sadly.  I admit I am very much a codependent.  My self confidence has been low most of my life, but I am raising it.  Now, through so much work in my life, I am learning for the first time in my life that I am more than capable of making myself happy, taking care of myself and my daughter and overcoming the remaining humps in my life.  Today, I am an over-comer and am excited for every day that comes because it is another step in the right direction and continued healing!   I have learned the importance of giving back to those in need, I understand what it means to be without.  I want to give and help with my knowledge or my paycheck, whichever is most appropriate, at any given moment.  I am thankful for my life and the terrors and what I have learned.  I love my family, I love my friends and I love my mankind.  This will not change, but will grow!!  Thank you for reading, and I welcome any feedback or comments.  Please share if you know anyone that might be interested in my story!

Child Abuse is the World’s Greatest Silent Crime

“Only when we are no longer afraid, do we begin to live.”  – Dorothy Thompson

Throughout our lives so many types of memories are created.  Good, bad, fun, scary, some indifferent.  I have memories of laughing harder than I have ever laughed before and I have memories of nightmare moments that many would never believe actually happened.  We have all experienced those moments, right?  Just some to other extents than others.  I believe that these assist in creating who we are as adults.  We turn out to be the product of our environment combined with things inherent within us.  Some people go through little and come out a mess and some live a life of hell and come out on top.  Things affect people in different ways and drive them to different abilities.  I am thankful today, that while I am one that went through hell growing up, a lot of abuse and contrary to that, I am a pretty OK adult!  I am full of strength I sometimes forget I have, I have a good work ethic and I have intelligence that got me where I am today; all while being a loving and compassionate person, (despite what some might say).  I love my fellow man and woman, although am often afraid to show it for fear of rejection.  I am in love with you, I am especially in love with me these days.  I am in love with the less fortunate who are trying to put food in their bellies or the bellies of their hungry children, and with their children who are struggling and hungry and don’t know any different.  I am in love with love, despite abuse; and in fact I crave it and don’t function well without it.  I think that would be exact reason I have made myself a priority lately and have focused so much on getting myself right.  I have learned that I cannot depend on anybody other than myself and my God to fulfill that hole in my heart that needs the love.  I am blessed to have the support system that I have now; but years ago, I didn’t have that.

I lived most of my formative years in fear.  Something that most people cannot fathom.  Fear of what was coming next, what was lurking around the corner.  Do you know what living in fear feels like?  Let me give you insight into what my world felt like, as I dealt with the fear and pain in silence and hid it.  It’s paralyzing.  Was there a punch to the face coming from my brother?  Will there be a black eye, will my jaw open wide enough to eat after he hits me across the face?  Will there be a bat to my ribs and will I be able to stand upright?  How long until I catch my breath?  Is there a 2×4 being swung at my head?  Will I be woken up inappropriately in the night and have to fight for my innocence?

Do any of you have claustrophobia?  Do you know where it came from?  I have it so bad I have to be pulled from the MRI tube 2 or 3 times crying because it terrifies me so badly.  How about fear of heights?  That’s my biggest one.  Fears all come from somewhere, you’re not born with them, they’re learned.    From the age of 3 or 4, (I’m not sure which age, but I know that was my age when I lived in the house where it started) we lived on a farm in Missouri.  Southern Missouri is filled with mountainous cliff hillsides, beautiful lush green trees and snakes.  Lots and lots of snakes.  As a 10-11 year old boy, my brother loved the snakes, toads, lizards – basically anything he could find to scare the daylights out of a 4 year old child.  He also was a good builder.  He build tree houses all over our property, one in particular that I was mortified to go up because that is where he kept his “pets”.  His pets being all of the creepy crawly things that I mentioned before.  I would be easily coerced into going up the tree house at 3-4 years old because I believed him that he wouldn’t do anything to scare or hurt me.  We are quite gullible at that age!  As a child you see the good in everyone, you don’t think they’re out to hurt or scare you and ultimately damage you for life.  So as I climbed the rickety boards nailed into the tree to the house portion, I would immediately see that he had NOT, in fact, gotten rid of any of his creepy crawlies and they he would lock the gate so I was stuck.  Stuck in the air, with him and his disgusting mind and jars of snakes, frogs and lizards.  (I was really only scared of the snakes because they were huge and scary; frogs and lizards I played with on the ground all the time.)  Here I am trapped with him as my commander to do as he says or he puts snakes on me.  Kind of like “it rubs the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose”.  Sick analogy, right?  But that’s what I think of every time, that’s how it felt.  So without further details, I tell you this is why today, I am mortified of snakes and I don’t like heights.  Now the claustrophobia, that’s a different story.  I suppose some of that came from him trapping me in a small space, but mostly from him holding me down.  Remember he is 7 years older than me and quite big.  He would be over top of me with my arms and legs pinned with his and first I would just get mad, then I would panic and scream and cry.  Eventually, he would be satisfied with his torture and let me up.  To this day, I cannot stand to be held down.  Not that this happens a lot as an adult, but in my younger years I found some superhuman strength if I got into a scrap and was on bottom, I quickly made it out of there and back on top.  Even playing around, wrestling, I feel trapped and will almost immediately freak out and start yelling.  I already told you how I react to the MRI tube and that is something I have to do several times a year.

Then there was my mom…what awful names will she call me today?  What would I do wrong today?  How would I displease or disappoint her?  What awful things would I be accused of when I was still very much innocent?  Will she grab me by the back of the head and slap me back and forth until her hand is tired?  How high will my anxiety be today?  Will my stomach hurt from the stress?  Will I need a pill to control my “nervous stomach” as they called it then.  Will I survive another day in this house?  How quickly can I get out and how late can I stay?  These were the thoughts that went through my head on a daily basis.  Utter fear brought all of these feelings to me every single day that I had to live in that house.  Put yourself in that mindset for just a moment.  Can you imagine that these are the people that you depend on, every single day of your life, yet you’re mortified of them?  Will they protect you or hurt you that day?  AND THEY CHOSE TO ADOPT ME!!!  WHY??  I’m not saying my life would have been any better anywhere else, but that question will always be there.  My life was hell and did it really have to be?  As a mother myself, I know I have not been perfect; in fact far from it.  I can guarantee you one thing though, if you ask my daughter if I love her she’ll say yes.  If you ask her if I would die protecting her, she’ll say yes.  I’ve had plenty of fails as a parent, but ultimately my child knows I would and DO, do anything in the world for her.  So please be clear, I am making no claims to being a perfect mom, but my daughter does not live in fear of me nor does she question my faith and love in her; and that is all I ever wanted from my mom.  Faith and love.  And protection.  I never got any of it before she died.  I will live with that nightmare for the rest of my life.

Then there was Dad…he was the closest thing to a hero I ever had in the house.  My dad was the best, although looking back now I don’t understand why or how he let everything happen.  He wasn’t a large stature man.  He was only 5’9″, retired from the military on disability with a very bad back and just not physically able to do a lot in the realm of protection for me.  He couldn’t fight off my brother by any means and hadn’t been able to for many years.  My brother is 6’3″ and weighed about 300 lbs.  Dad was no match for him and he couldn’t physically protect me.  He couldn’t protect himself or Mom either, as my brother often turned on them as well.  I will never understand why he didn’t get me out of there though.  Call the cops, do something!!  I know my dad loved me more than anything and I believe that to be the reason Mom hated me, jealousy.  She never worked.  He didn’t work.  So my entire life they were both home and Mom didn’t drive.  It was a very old fashioned home.  Mom and Dad cooked dinner together every night.  They went to the store together.  They hung laundry on the clothes line together.  They differed on my treatment.  Dad was never ok with it, but didn’t stop it.  So on one hand he was my hero but on the other hand he was the enabler.  I feel guilt when I say this, because I loved him so much, but it made him as guilty as the abusers by not putting a stop to it.  Silence is as bad as performing the act yourself.  Remember that people.  If you see abuse – DO SOMETHING!!!!  If you aren’t sure, find out.  Call somebody to have it checked out.  Could you live your life knowing that YOU allowed ME to go through what I’ve just described to you?  I couldn’t.  If I could stop all abuse I would, but I’ll take it one at a time as I can for now.

This brother is now in prison for the rest of his life, where he belongs, but the nightmares will never stop.  In fact, the first thing for me to do today was write because I woke up screaming at 6:30am over a nightmare of him and Mom.  The nightmare took place in our old house where I lived in high school.  He was in his 20’s by then and I had learned to stand up to him.  He would come and go when he pleased, not really living there, but showing up to stay whenever he wanted and the hell would ensue.  Most of my dreams, or nightmares, are a real depiction of what took place.  We are both home, I try to be calm, but the fear wells up and it’s as if he is an animal that can smell it.  The fear triggers his reaction and the hunt and fight are on.  In this particular dream last night (remember how crazy dreams can be), the fight began and several pieces I don’t remember of me trying to get away and scream but nothing came out; he ended up holding me down as described before, shoving paper into my mouth so I couldn’t breathe.  All the while, Mom was in the next room not hearing my cries.  This was a much more intense dream than usual and I didn’t know where I was but I knew it was a dream I needed to wake up from.  I didn’t know how old I was for instance or that I was in my bedroom or where the door was, because I was looking for it as I tried to wake myself from the screaming cries with tears rolling down my face.  When I finally woke, I couldn’t stop crying.  It’s a horrible realization that these things happen and not just to me, but to thousands of children and much worse than what I went through.  It absolutely breaks my heart.  It takes me back to a time I don’t like to remember, but I am thankful somehow that I have these memories because it gives me empathy and understanding for those that have also endured this type of life.  It also gives me the satisfaction of knowing I survived it, I have strength most don’t have because of it and unfortunately I have insecurities and fears most don’t have as well.  So in everything there is good and bad.  I ignored for so long…I focused on the bad…now I learn from it and focus on the good.

Thanks for coming back, more to come!  Love.