As a little girl I always wished my life could be like my friend Jill’s, with a mother that cooked dinner and helped her with her homework.
That wasn’t my life though. Everyday my mother and her dope friends would shoot up Heroin in the living room. I remember bringing my little sisters into my bedroom and turning the T.V. up real loud so that they couldn’t hear mom and her friends partying. When I had gotten to high school mom decided she was going to try and quit doping it up and ended up at Hall Street where the Methadone clinic is. It didn’t help though, she just ended up even more addicted to the Methadone than she was to the Heroin. She drinks it, you know, the Meth. She once said the addiction to Methadone was like liquid handcuffs, the Meth made it so that she couldn’t get high if she shot up and it shackled her back to Hall Street pulling her there every day as soon as she woke. I used to try really hard at school and when I would come home I’d clean the house and cook for my sisters, thinking if I was a good daughter it would be easier for her to stay clean. I really believed my love would be enough for her to be happy.
Mom didn’t stay clean long. Since it was harder for the Heroin to make my mother high, she’d combine alcohol and Benzos such as Xanax or Klonopin, then she’d get high just like as if she were on Heroin again.
One day I came home and opened the door. I walked into my kitchen. The trash was knocked over and all the cabinets were open. A bag of flour was busted open and thrown around the kitchen like a dusting of freshly fallen snow. I walked into my room, it was in shambles. All the contents of my dresser were thrown onto the floor and there my mother was going through my closet. I said “Mom, are you ok? What’s going on?” I was shocked and scared at the same time. I have never seen her in such a frenzy before. She was sweating and angry. She took me and shook me and pushed me up against the wall and said “where are my fucking pills, you took them, didn’t you? You wanted to know what it felt like to be high, just like Mommy.”
Then she went to the window and started throwing my stuff out. I was so scared. I just stood there and watched as my pictures and awards crashed down and splintered against the cold concrete sidewalk. Then she turned to me and said “Get the fuck outta here and never come back.” I begged her, I said “Mom, I love you and I want to help. You can’t live like this anymore.” She shoved me to the ground and stood over and said “leave before you end up like me.”
Crying, I turned around and walked away, not knowing where I was going or even if I was going to be safe. I was fifteen when I left home to go live with my friend Jill. The sad thing is I really believed I could do it. I believed that love could change an addict.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Post 12
There is a shadow that follows me wherever I go. She is the girl who has survived so much more than anybody should ever have to survive. It’s so hard to love her, when all I want to do is blame her; blame myself for what happened. I can’t go into detail, see, I did once and it was reported. I have to talk to social workers, detectives, and counselors.
That little girl always seems to get in the way. She covers my eyes with blindness when I least expect and jumps into my heart when I least need it. The shadow follows me everywhere, to school, to work, and home. Sometimes the sun is beaming down in the right spot and I cannot see her, but I know she’s there. That little shadow, her name is Boo. She got that name when she was 3 years old. Almost all of her family calls her that. She doesn’t really like it. It reminds her of very bad things.
When bad things would happen, Boo blamed herself. As she grew older she continued to do so. Not only was she blaming herself for her past, but things that happened in the present. Sometimes Boo really was at fault, but more often than not, she was the last person who should be blamed. Boo would beat herself up for everything. All of her thoughts were negative ones, always swearing at herself and hurting herself. Boo even tried to kill herself when things got too hard to handle. She just wanted to be happy, but couldn’t get past the pain.
Boo is Beth when I can’t stay in the present. Boo is the little girl who saved my life when bad things would happen. Boo never did anything wrong, she was just a little girl trying to survive when times got tough. It’s not Boo’s fault, and It’s not my fault. It's not your fault, I promise. You can survive, and you will. We are strong.
That little girl always seems to get in the way. She covers my eyes with blindness when I least expect and jumps into my heart when I least need it. The shadow follows me everywhere, to school, to work, and home. Sometimes the sun is beaming down in the right spot and I cannot see her, but I know she’s there. That little shadow, her name is Boo. She got that name when she was 3 years old. Almost all of her family calls her that. She doesn’t really like it. It reminds her of very bad things.
When bad things would happen, Boo blamed herself. As she grew older she continued to do so. Not only was she blaming herself for her past, but things that happened in the present. Sometimes Boo really was at fault, but more often than not, she was the last person who should be blamed. Boo would beat herself up for everything. All of her thoughts were negative ones, always swearing at herself and hurting herself. Boo even tried to kill herself when things got too hard to handle. She just wanted to be happy, but couldn’t get past the pain.
Boo is Beth when I can’t stay in the present. Boo is the little girl who saved my life when bad things would happen. Boo never did anything wrong, she was just a little girl trying to survive when times got tough. It’s not Boo’s fault, and It’s not my fault. It's not your fault, I promise. You can survive, and you will. We are strong.
Post 11
Born: August 1, female, 7 lbs 2 ozs, brown eyes
Distinctive marks: Leo, born on mother's birthday
Place in family: 5th child
On my Duffys Website page background for this I choose the picture of two people standing on the river bank because the remarkable thing is that under the tree branches from a distance it forms the outline of a baby. How fitting was that for me. Though I had been exploring and learning on my own for years, this is where I place my book mark.
This journey truly began on October 23, 1989 at the Wellness Center in Vestal, New York. There I began to see the light. It was perhaps the first time in my life that I let the world come in.
These are some notes from that day's class. The doctor who was in charged began with telling us that we where all predispose to ending up in a clinic like this if we had 2 or 3 of the following
Demographics in our lifetime.
Came from a large family I had 11 children in mine
Middle to later born I was the fifth
Less then a high school education I was out at sixteen
Parented early I had first child at nineteen
Never allowed to be a kid I have few happy memories
Model for chronic pain I have my mother
Married early I married first time at nineteen
Had kids quickly I was pregnant with first child
Abuse history I had physical and sexual
Multiple marriages I had been married three times
When he was done speaking my whole table broke out in laughter as I asked him "what happens if you have all 10"? He just looked at me and jokingly said "you get to come back for another thirty days". As he left the room that day he placed his hand knowingly on my shoulder. I had laughed when I should have cried. That was when I had the first real look at my condition and accept the first in a long list of diagnoses.
It seemed rather simple back then. It was called Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They could help with Cognitive Behavior Management (CBM). How simple it was. Just follow this simple plan and I'd be cured. Well, as any of us who are dissociate and had this label back then, found out that it only worked for a little while. Then the world would come crashing in again.
I have survived my childhood and my adulthood this far. My diagnoses are the only thing that seems to change. I've told the same story to each doctor who has treated me and each one claims to have the answer. I've been through all the Bi-Polar medication, the Boarder line Personality, the depression and manic stage medications of my life yet seem to be the only one willing at some point to accept myself for who I am. A great person with a dissociate tendency. If I could just get a handle on that one part of me my life might be complete. OK maybe not.
Where my life goes from here, I may not be sure. The one thing that I do know is that I have to keep going. In my life there has been set backs or stops along the way. some of them where not all that I had hoped they would be.
I've been in many relationships during my years and even though some where full of pain and sorrow, I can't really say that I would ever want my life to have been different. As a dissociate my memories have been kept in files. My bad experiences where handled by one and my happy/good memories in another. As you read my stories they may seem all doom and gloom. Remember that the happy memories remained in another story. That's how we deal with life.
Good memories we carry with us on the other side every day. It is the bad memories that we fight with every night. Many years ago I would pray for a better life. Now as I look around and listen to all the people I have met, I have come to believe that my life, though hard and sad, was so much better then other's.
I've heard from people all over the world that are dissociate and who have survived unbelievable lives compared to mine. My heart continues to go out to these people. When they write me their stories and share some of their pain with me, I can only pray that their healing come quickly for them.
Each of us is blessed who have begun this healing process. We can now share our heartaches and know that it is understood by many. I hope that some, when they come across these pages truly know that they are not alone. My stories in my sites are the first things that I was able to write about. They are just thebeginning of the stories. Slowly I hope that I will be able to write more into them. I've yet to remember the feelings of terror and hurt that I only have pictures of now.
Know that it is a process and for some of us we can never find it all. That is because as dissociate we weren't there. If that means that I never know or feel all the details then I'm ok with that. Just remember to believe in your self and know that if you find yourself crossing these pages then you are where you need to be.
Writing these stories has been a relief in it's own way. Trauma and abuse no matter what any one else will call it, causes this to happen to us. Being born with the tendency as they say or chemical imbalance (and I do believe this) causes us to experience our lives differently then others.
I come from a large family and none of them seem to have been affected by living in this unit as I was. So there must be something to that theory. Years ago they thought you had to relive these traumas in order to move on with your life. Don't let anyone make you believe that. We are who and what we are.
If you are truly a dissociate person then your disorder may never be able to take you there. That's the blessing in it all. For some things WE weren't there. (note: I will put a page up with some of the ways I sorted through memories to decide which where real and which were imagined as such. A very good tool for me.)
I need to say a few more things before you go on with this journey. I have seen in my life and the lives of others, that being dissociation was a gift. I have known people who weren't able to block out the pain and have suffered most of their lives because of it. We truly are the lucky ones who can say "I never felt" and "I cant remember". Those are truly the words and the ones who were saved. Many who could not dissociate did not survive and make it as far as those of us who can. That may not be much to say and understand now; yet I do hope that some day along this path you will understand that.
Live your life now and make peace with your past. That's what I have found to be the best advice to remember. On my web sites I have links to friends who have joined me and experienced much of life as I have. We all traveled different paths yet the same in so many ways. Each of my stories started out small and I added to them as the need arose. Once you read some of them please come back and email me if you want.
This was my first writing in many years. It started to flow one night and has never stopped even now as I begin these pages here and in my real world. Lady J
this was my mess that I actually got to stand up in front of the first group of women and teach this to. I still have that original set of papers typed out on the elementry school type writer the kids teacher let me use.
When lady j found her voice. I used word symbols for many things in my life. Much like acronyms to make a sentence, my word symbols tell a story.
Instead of reading the letters across, I write, then and you read them down.
"This Is MY MESS" ©1990LadyJtalks
M E S S
E M P E
N O I X
T T R U
A I I A
L O T L
N U
A A
L L
______________
L L L L
A O I I
B V F E
E E E S
L
__________
L E E S
When all was said and done, I got to the time for change in my recovery.
It brought me to a point where life could start again for me.
This is where my "word symbol" landed on a piece of paper.
It was the word MESS.
I knew it meant something by the way it made me feel inside as I looked at it.
It finally made sense.
How to clean up all the mess of my life.
It no longer mattered how it got there, who put it there, or how long it's been there.
It was now my responsibility to clean it up.
I had somehow gained the "ability to respond".
First I laid the MESS out where I could see it.
Then I separated each part and dealt with each letter separately.
M stood for mental. The mind blocked for more than twenty years.
Unable to let ideas flow evenly.
E stood for emotional. A agitation of the passions,
a strong feeling of a subject. How we are on the inside.
The first S stood for spiritual. Our very being, our soul, the God like part of us.
Neither tangible or material. The essence of our being.
The last S stood for sexual.
It pertains to the sexes and how life all comes together to make new life.
______________________________________________________
I drew a line and began adding things up.
At first the bottom line looks like all L's to me.
But I have come to know that life isn't always
what it appears to be.
When I look closer then passed it, I saw more.
Are they L's or are they perhaps the angles.
This piece I dedicate to the Candy Man from whom I found my mess
I was in when I learned his angle.
Life at this point is not right or wrong, it just is.
As I turn the angles around I make them the right angle or right direction.
What was done is done.
Now We take these angle to any degree to start the approach of our new life.
Under the mental the L (or angle) now stands for label.
A functioning means of identification attached to some thing to
designate it's origin, owner and contents.
The L (or angle) under emotional is for love.
The intangible, elusive part of our world.
You can't buy it, touch it, hold it, give it away or receive it for a present.
You can only feel it in your being.
When one stops waiting for it to arrive or trying to give it away you can begin to understand it.
It's the part of you always with you.
Having it gives you the ability to show love and except the gifts of
feeling love others give you in showing their love for you.
The next L (or angle) is life. A living growing being. That's what we are now.
Life is the interval between birth and death.
The process of living not just physically,
but mentally, emotionally, spiritually and sexually.
The last and most important L (or angle) is for the lies.
It is plural because it has two parts in it to make one whole being.
It takes two parts to create life, influence life, and change life.
The first part of the lie keeps us remaining in a specific condition.
We occupy this place and that becomes all to us.
The second part is the deliberate falsehoods we where taught as children.
Since we never knew to give them back we passed them on.
Not knowing we convey the false image that this is how life is.
"It's time to give it back or get rid of it"
______________________________________________________
As I drew the line and added things up again,
what was left was the letters L E E S.
I knew it must mean some thing, and there was this feeling again inside.
It had to be a word. It had to be a tangible part, and there had to be a purpose for it.
I looked for it's meaning.
I looked under the L's in the dictionary.
There I first found the word lee:
the side or quarter away from the wind 2. cover, shelter.
(it did shelter us all those years. We never felt exposed till the cover came off)
But I had LEES ? plural? It took two
lees: pl.n. Dregs; sediment
Wondering what dregs is? So did I. If that was my answer what did it mean.
dregs: pl. n. the sediment of a liquid. lees 2. the basest or least desirable portion.
Sediment is the material that settle to the bottom.
Dregs is all the junk we either don't want or don't need any more.
When all is settle and the "lees" has been given back, washed away with our tears,
drained out of us or enough time passes to distance us from our past.
What is left?
A foundation to start to build on in this process that has begun now and continues.
Distinctive marks: Leo, born on mother's birthday
Place in family: 5th child
On my Duffys Website page background for this I choose the picture of two people standing on the river bank because the remarkable thing is that under the tree branches from a distance it forms the outline of a baby. How fitting was that for me. Though I had been exploring and learning on my own for years, this is where I place my book mark.
This journey truly began on October 23, 1989 at the Wellness Center in Vestal, New York. There I began to see the light. It was perhaps the first time in my life that I let the world come in.
These are some notes from that day's class. The doctor who was in charged began with telling us that we where all predispose to ending up in a clinic like this if we had 2 or 3 of the following
Demographics in our lifetime.
Came from a large family I had 11 children in mine
Middle to later born I was the fifth
Less then a high school education I was out at sixteen
Parented early I had first child at nineteen
Never allowed to be a kid I have few happy memories
Model for chronic pain I have my mother
Married early I married first time at nineteen
Had kids quickly I was pregnant with first child
Abuse history I had physical and sexual
Multiple marriages I had been married three times
When he was done speaking my whole table broke out in laughter as I asked him "what happens if you have all 10"? He just looked at me and jokingly said "you get to come back for another thirty days". As he left the room that day he placed his hand knowingly on my shoulder. I had laughed when I should have cried. That was when I had the first real look at my condition and accept the first in a long list of diagnoses.
It seemed rather simple back then. It was called Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They could help with Cognitive Behavior Management (CBM). How simple it was. Just follow this simple plan and I'd be cured. Well, as any of us who are dissociate and had this label back then, found out that it only worked for a little while. Then the world would come crashing in again.
I have survived my childhood and my adulthood this far. My diagnoses are the only thing that seems to change. I've told the same story to each doctor who has treated me and each one claims to have the answer. I've been through all the Bi-Polar medication, the Boarder line Personality, the depression and manic stage medications of my life yet seem to be the only one willing at some point to accept myself for who I am. A great person with a dissociate tendency. If I could just get a handle on that one part of me my life might be complete. OK maybe not.
Where my life goes from here, I may not be sure. The one thing that I do know is that I have to keep going. In my life there has been set backs or stops along the way. some of them where not all that I had hoped they would be.
I've been in many relationships during my years and even though some where full of pain and sorrow, I can't really say that I would ever want my life to have been different. As a dissociate my memories have been kept in files. My bad experiences where handled by one and my happy/good memories in another. As you read my stories they may seem all doom and gloom. Remember that the happy memories remained in another story. That's how we deal with life.
Good memories we carry with us on the other side every day. It is the bad memories that we fight with every night. Many years ago I would pray for a better life. Now as I look around and listen to all the people I have met, I have come to believe that my life, though hard and sad, was so much better then other's.
I've heard from people all over the world that are dissociate and who have survived unbelievable lives compared to mine. My heart continues to go out to these people. When they write me their stories and share some of their pain with me, I can only pray that their healing come quickly for them.
Each of us is blessed who have begun this healing process. We can now share our heartaches and know that it is understood by many. I hope that some, when they come across these pages truly know that they are not alone. My stories in my sites are the first things that I was able to write about. They are just thebeginning of the stories. Slowly I hope that I will be able to write more into them. I've yet to remember the feelings of terror and hurt that I only have pictures of now.
Know that it is a process and for some of us we can never find it all. That is because as dissociate we weren't there. If that means that I never know or feel all the details then I'm ok with that. Just remember to believe in your self and know that if you find yourself crossing these pages then you are where you need to be.
Writing these stories has been a relief in it's own way. Trauma and abuse no matter what any one else will call it, causes this to happen to us. Being born with the tendency as they say or chemical imbalance (and I do believe this) causes us to experience our lives differently then others.
I come from a large family and none of them seem to have been affected by living in this unit as I was. So there must be something to that theory. Years ago they thought you had to relive these traumas in order to move on with your life. Don't let anyone make you believe that. We are who and what we are.
If you are truly a dissociate person then your disorder may never be able to take you there. That's the blessing in it all. For some things WE weren't there. (note: I will put a page up with some of the ways I sorted through memories to decide which where real and which were imagined as such. A very good tool for me.)
I need to say a few more things before you go on with this journey. I have seen in my life and the lives of others, that being dissociation was a gift. I have known people who weren't able to block out the pain and have suffered most of their lives because of it. We truly are the lucky ones who can say "I never felt" and "I cant remember". Those are truly the words and the ones who were saved. Many who could not dissociate did not survive and make it as far as those of us who can. That may not be much to say and understand now; yet I do hope that some day along this path you will understand that.
Live your life now and make peace with your past. That's what I have found to be the best advice to remember. On my web sites I have links to friends who have joined me and experienced much of life as I have. We all traveled different paths yet the same in so many ways. Each of my stories started out small and I added to them as the need arose. Once you read some of them please come back and email me if you want.
This was my first writing in many years. It started to flow one night and has never stopped even now as I begin these pages here and in my real world. Lady J
this was my mess that I actually got to stand up in front of the first group of women and teach this to. I still have that original set of papers typed out on the elementry school type writer the kids teacher let me use.
When lady j found her voice. I used word symbols for many things in my life. Much like acronyms to make a sentence, my word symbols tell a story.
Instead of reading the letters across, I write, then and you read them down.
"This Is MY MESS" ©1990LadyJtalks
M E S S
E M P E
N O I X
T T R U
A I I A
L O T L
N U
A A
L L
______________
L L L L
A O I I
B V F E
E E E S
L
__________
L E E S
When all was said and done, I got to the time for change in my recovery.
It brought me to a point where life could start again for me.
This is where my "word symbol" landed on a piece of paper.
It was the word MESS.
I knew it meant something by the way it made me feel inside as I looked at it.
It finally made sense.
How to clean up all the mess of my life.
It no longer mattered how it got there, who put it there, or how long it's been there.
It was now my responsibility to clean it up.
I had somehow gained the "ability to respond".
First I laid the MESS out where I could see it.
Then I separated each part and dealt with each letter separately.
M stood for mental. The mind blocked for more than twenty years.
Unable to let ideas flow evenly.
E stood for emotional. A agitation of the passions,
a strong feeling of a subject. How we are on the inside.
The first S stood for spiritual. Our very being, our soul, the God like part of us.
Neither tangible or material. The essence of our being.
The last S stood for sexual.
It pertains to the sexes and how life all comes together to make new life.
______________________________________________________
I drew a line and began adding things up.
At first the bottom line looks like all L's to me.
But I have come to know that life isn't always
what it appears to be.
When I look closer then passed it, I saw more.
Are they L's or are they perhaps the angles.
This piece I dedicate to the Candy Man from whom I found my mess
I was in when I learned his angle.
Life at this point is not right or wrong, it just is.
As I turn the angles around I make them the right angle or right direction.
What was done is done.
Now We take these angle to any degree to start the approach of our new life.
Under the mental the L (or angle) now stands for label.
A functioning means of identification attached to some thing to
designate it's origin, owner and contents.
The L (or angle) under emotional is for love.
The intangible, elusive part of our world.
You can't buy it, touch it, hold it, give it away or receive it for a present.
You can only feel it in your being.
When one stops waiting for it to arrive or trying to give it away you can begin to understand it.
It's the part of you always with you.
Having it gives you the ability to show love and except the gifts of
feeling love others give you in showing their love for you.
The next L (or angle) is life. A living growing being. That's what we are now.
Life is the interval between birth and death.
The process of living not just physically,
but mentally, emotionally, spiritually and sexually.
The last and most important L (or angle) is for the lies.
It is plural because it has two parts in it to make one whole being.
It takes two parts to create life, influence life, and change life.
The first part of the lie keeps us remaining in a specific condition.
We occupy this place and that becomes all to us.
The second part is the deliberate falsehoods we where taught as children.
Since we never knew to give them back we passed them on.
Not knowing we convey the false image that this is how life is.
"It's time to give it back or get rid of it"
______________________________________________________
As I drew the line and added things up again,
what was left was the letters L E E S.
I knew it must mean some thing, and there was this feeling again inside.
It had to be a word. It had to be a tangible part, and there had to be a purpose for it.
I looked for it's meaning.
I looked under the L's in the dictionary.
There I first found the word lee:
the side or quarter away from the wind 2. cover, shelter.
(it did shelter us all those years. We never felt exposed till the cover came off)
But I had LEES ? plural? It took two
lees: pl.n. Dregs; sediment
Wondering what dregs is? So did I. If that was my answer what did it mean.
dregs: pl. n. the sediment of a liquid. lees 2. the basest or least desirable portion.
Sediment is the material that settle to the bottom.
Dregs is all the junk we either don't want or don't need any more.
When all is settle and the "lees" has been given back, washed away with our tears,
drained out of us or enough time passes to distance us from our past.
What is left?
A foundation to start to build on in this process that has begun now and continues.
Post 10
The phrase, "I remember", is a touchy one for me. You see, I DIDN'T remember.
It made me so angry. ALL of those years that I spent with the one person that harmed me so completely. So deeply. A person that I loved and trusted with my life. My best friend, the funniest, smartest man I'd ever known. The man I looked up to and held up as a guide to men I would eventually fall in love with. The man that shared my thoughts, inside jokes, bizarre sense of humor and memories of all things wonderful. My hero. My big brother, my rapist.
I never believed you could repress memories. I thought my memory was perfect. I remember building "Forts" with him. Lots of blankets and heavy books, shielding us from the bad guys. Making cinnamon toast and ovaltine under our fortress. Being Ginger Rogers while he was Fred Astaire. Us dancing through the house singing,"Heaven, I'm in heaven!!"
And, years later, being the first to rush up to him in the airport after he had been in a terrible car accident that killed his friend. Him, crying in my lap all the way home to Alexandria Virginia. Me telling him that we loved him and that there was nothing he could have done to save his friend.
The death of my mother. I took care of her for years. When she died,I took the train to DC. My mothers body was on the train with me. The funeral parlor took her body and I hailed a cab to my brothers house. I was shattered. Broken into a million pieces. He opened the door and I fell into his arms sobbing from grief and exhaustion. He made me a drink. Southern Comfort,tea, lemon, honey. It was seven am. We drank and cried, played my parents old radio shows, laughed, cried some more, drank some more. He tucked me into bed at noon. I awoke at 8pm. Eyes so swollen I could hardly see. He was there, with ice cold wash cloths, aspirin, and a Valium. My big brother. My buddy. My brutal rapist. My caring companion in grief.
It was only after I'd had my baby that little slide shows would appear out of nowhere. Bits and pieces of horror and pain. Brutal, disgusting images would fly through my head. At first, I thought I was just suffering from some sort of postpartum depression. I talked with my doctor. He said it was possible, but, he wanted me to see a counselor. My doctor had an odd, sad, look on his face.
My counselor was a lovely woman. I told her about my strange thoughts, the bits of horror going through my head. but, now the bits were turning into chunks of imagery. Very distinct, clear memories of being bound and gagged, raped with different objects, my brothers face and voice, different. This was not my protective brother, this was a sick and twisted evil person that sounded slightly like my brother. His voice was rough and cruel. His body forcing me to do things that no 8 year old should ever do.
I remember the way he told me that when I got older, he'd make purses out of my breasts. Share me with his friends. Maybe even sell my body to other guys. I remember bleeding, all alone in the bath room. I was young and did not know what to do. I distinctly remember finding an old, brown glass bottle of :Lysol, and pouring it on my genitals. It burned, so I rinsed myself off and went to my room. I lay there, all night, waiting for the monster to come again.
He visited me, through the years, until I was 12. Abruptly stopping what he had started 4 years before. I guess I was too old, not responsive anymore. I had begun puberty and he lost interest. Sociopaths can act like nothing was ever wrong, nothing was ever done. And, I would go blank. Shut down. My mind was no longer with my body. And, THAT is why I did not remember. All the years of being friends, best friends, with this person. He must have known I did not remember. I never slept well at night. Even now as I write this and he is 700 miles away, I still do not sleep at night.
When it all came crashing down, I could not believe it. "It must be my imagination" I'd say. Only, I could not deny the truth. It was real. It did happen. My path to forgiving my brother has been covered in boulders and unimaginable rage and hatred. I REMEMBER NOW. All of it. And, I forgive you Jeff.
Lisa
It made me so angry. ALL of those years that I spent with the one person that harmed me so completely. So deeply. A person that I loved and trusted with my life. My best friend, the funniest, smartest man I'd ever known. The man I looked up to and held up as a guide to men I would eventually fall in love with. The man that shared my thoughts, inside jokes, bizarre sense of humor and memories of all things wonderful. My hero. My big brother, my rapist.
I never believed you could repress memories. I thought my memory was perfect. I remember building "Forts" with him. Lots of blankets and heavy books, shielding us from the bad guys. Making cinnamon toast and ovaltine under our fortress. Being Ginger Rogers while he was Fred Astaire. Us dancing through the house singing,"Heaven, I'm in heaven!!"
And, years later, being the first to rush up to him in the airport after he had been in a terrible car accident that killed his friend. Him, crying in my lap all the way home to Alexandria Virginia. Me telling him that we loved him and that there was nothing he could have done to save his friend.
The death of my mother. I took care of her for years. When she died,I took the train to DC. My mothers body was on the train with me. The funeral parlor took her body and I hailed a cab to my brothers house. I was shattered. Broken into a million pieces. He opened the door and I fell into his arms sobbing from grief and exhaustion. He made me a drink. Southern Comfort,tea, lemon, honey. It was seven am. We drank and cried, played my parents old radio shows, laughed, cried some more, drank some more. He tucked me into bed at noon. I awoke at 8pm. Eyes so swollen I could hardly see. He was there, with ice cold wash cloths, aspirin, and a Valium. My big brother. My buddy. My brutal rapist. My caring companion in grief.
It was only after I'd had my baby that little slide shows would appear out of nowhere. Bits and pieces of horror and pain. Brutal, disgusting images would fly through my head. At first, I thought I was just suffering from some sort of postpartum depression. I talked with my doctor. He said it was possible, but, he wanted me to see a counselor. My doctor had an odd, sad, look on his face.
My counselor was a lovely woman. I told her about my strange thoughts, the bits of horror going through my head. but, now the bits were turning into chunks of imagery. Very distinct, clear memories of being bound and gagged, raped with different objects, my brothers face and voice, different. This was not my protective brother, this was a sick and twisted evil person that sounded slightly like my brother. His voice was rough and cruel. His body forcing me to do things that no 8 year old should ever do.
I remember the way he told me that when I got older, he'd make purses out of my breasts. Share me with his friends. Maybe even sell my body to other guys. I remember bleeding, all alone in the bath room. I was young and did not know what to do. I distinctly remember finding an old, brown glass bottle of :Lysol, and pouring it on my genitals. It burned, so I rinsed myself off and went to my room. I lay there, all night, waiting for the monster to come again.
He visited me, through the years, until I was 12. Abruptly stopping what he had started 4 years before. I guess I was too old, not responsive anymore. I had begun puberty and he lost interest. Sociopaths can act like nothing was ever wrong, nothing was ever done. And, I would go blank. Shut down. My mind was no longer with my body. And, THAT is why I did not remember. All the years of being friends, best friends, with this person. He must have known I did not remember. I never slept well at night. Even now as I write this and he is 700 miles away, I still do not sleep at night.
When it all came crashing down, I could not believe it. "It must be my imagination" I'd say. Only, I could not deny the truth. It was real. It did happen. My path to forgiving my brother has been covered in boulders and unimaginable rage and hatred. I REMEMBER NOW. All of it. And, I forgive you Jeff.
Lisa
Post 9: Billie's Story
Here’s a little about me… My name is Billie and if you think I’m a guy you’re wrong, I’m a chick. I was raised in Southern California. I’m 22 years old and can't believe I’ve made it this far. My mother did drugs the first three months of her pregnancy. Maybe that has a lot to do with my problems or maybe it's all the stuff I went through. I was a healthy baby and the drugs didn't affect me. The doctors said maybe later in my life they would see problems, like learning disabilities or ADD. I ended up with both. My mom did drugs the first 10 years of my life. I only have a couple memories of my dad. He was always overdosing on drugs and my mom had to put ice down his pants to wake him up. I haven’t heard from him in 14 years. I guess my early memories start with my sister’s dad. He and my mom were both druggies and drunks and since we lived behind a bar, they pretty much lived there. They left me to take care of my baby sister when I was only 4 years old. My sister only lived with us on the weekends because she was in foster care. I was also in foster care but the people let me stay with my mom because they couldn’t handle me. I was always crying, screaming and causing trouble. I was very attached to my mom for some weird reason. I would cry for hours and hours and wouldn’t stop. They didn’t understand and I couldn’t explain it to them at 4 years old. My foster parents weren't the greatest parents. I used to pee the bed and my foster mother would make me suck my underwear with pee on them. I don't know if she was crazy because now she’s a zombie on psych meds. Her daughter used to put stuff on her boobs and ask me to suck them. Sometimes I stayed with them when my mom needed to put me in a safe place, away from my sister’s dad. My sister’s dad used to beat my mom over and over. He broke her nose twice and shot her once. I saw all of this and so much more. He would beat me too. He raped me. He used to stick knives and pencils in me. He used to tie me up and he would make me do stuff to our dog. He used to play doctor with me. He was a sick man. My mom went to court ordered drug treatment when I was 6 or 7. I used to cry and scream there. My mom used to cover my mouth and nose until I passed out because she didn’t know what else to do. The people there told my mom to take me to the behavioral health center to be put on medication. I was put on Lithium and so many other medications from that point on. I first tried to hang myself in our closet with a metal hanger and all my mom did was yell at me and then cut me down. My mom stopped doing street drugs and is just living on pain killers and psych meds now. When I turned 12 was when I first started to really hurt myself. I start burning myself. After awhile, I needed to see blood so I started to cut. At first, it was just scratches, but years later, when I was 14 or 15, I started to cut with knives. I have scars everywhere from head to toe. I've had so many stitches from cutting. I've even cut a piece of my leg out. I've tried to kill myself so many times with pills, but God didn't want me to go. He has me here for a reason. I remember once the doctor told me that I wasn't going to make it through the night because I shot my liver. That was the worst night of my life but I made it through. The doctor was shocked. I had to drink this horrible drink every 3 hours for the next 2 weeks. At age 13, I was sent to Utah to a place called Heritage. At the time, I thought that was the shittiest place ever and I had to stay there for 2 years. I tried hurting myself a lot and I was a big safety hazard. Heritage really showed me life. I went to another place where my mother wanted me to get off medication because she thought that was the problem with me. They took me off all meds and I had horrible anxiety and didn’t sleep for days. I was scared and tried to hurt myself even worse. Heritage put me back on one medication instead of 7. My mother disagreed with this so Heritage went to court and got approval to keep me on my medication. Then, I was sent to Colorado. Many places wouldn’t take me because I was a danger to myself the first time I walked onto the unit. I started to try to kill myself, cut myself and pass out every day. The place in Colorado kept me drugged up all the time and couldn’t keep me safe so they sent me back to the Children’s Hospital. They kept me in a little safe room for 3 months and had someone watch me at the door all day. The only time I left my safe room was to shower and pee in the bathroom that was 3 feet away. They drugged me up on Seroquel and I don’t know how I was still walking and talking. After Colorado, they sent me to San Jose, California to Starlight. I begged my mom for a month to come and get me. I told her stories of staff being beat up. She finally came and took me out at 17 years old. I went home for 3 months until I tried to kill myself again because I couldn’t live with my crazy mom. I think she was still using drugs. She would abuse me physically and emotionally. When I tried to kill myself, Heritage said they would take me back if they could have custody of me. Even though I begged, my mom refused because she would lose money. They sent me back to Starlight instead and it was still crazy. I didn’t hurt myself once while I was there. I couldn’t. Because I was turning 18, if I hurt myself, I would be locked up forever. I started praying a lot, talking to God, and writing. I don't how I made it through there, but I did. I stayed there until my 18 birthday and my mom picked me up to go back home. That was the day that I changed and started a new life. The day after I came home, I went to meet my new therapist. Somehow, I was blessed with an amazing person. For the next 2.5 years of my life, she helped me with my issues like talking about my sister’s dad, my mom and hurting myself. I can't say I didn't hurt myself after treatment, but it wasn’t like when I was younger. My new therapist wouldn’t lock me up in the hospital if I felt like hurting myself or was feeling suicidal. She would talk to me, trust me and make a safety plan. I slowly stopped hurting myself and when I did, the space between each time would get longer and longer. I haven’t hurt myself in almost 3 years. I still feel like doing it sometimes but I wait it out or cry it out. I know I'll never hurt myself again and I can't see how I did that to myself. I am doing really well in life, I have to say. For me, the hardest time in my life was the beginning, so the rest my life isn't going to be hard. I’ve already had everything possible happen to me so I know how to deal with it. I get to have my childhood and my adulthood right now and I can balance it out. I am going to school to be a nurse so that I can help people. I want to help people in many ways. I also want to start a business as a public speaker and go around to treatment centers and talk to kids. I also want to be a Juvenile PO so I can help the kids in the system because I know how it is. I don't know what I'll end up doing first. I have a lot of dreams and I’m happy now. I still I have my sad days, but everyone does. That’s when you find love and support. I’m scared to die and I want to live forever. I have so much to see and to become and I don’t think my life is long enough for me to do everything. Time really does fly by. I know that I had to go through that stuff to be where I am in life. I couldn’t see myself growing up a different way because I wouldn’t be me. I had to go through all that to find my place, values and love. I had to go through that to find LIFE.
Post 9: Intro
The next story is from Billie. I am honored to be posting this story as a part of this blogathon and so happy she agreed to do it. Billie is very dear to me for lots of reasons. While I was working at Starlight, they told us we were getting a new girl who was so dangerous that she would always be on a 1:1. This meant that whoever her assigned staff was couldn’t be more than an arm’s length away at all times: bathroom, shower, sleeping, eating, you name it. Anyway, like most of the staff was probably thinking, I was wondering just how long it would take to restrain this girl for unsafe behavior. I also was secretly hoping I would not be her 1:1. Dangerous kids on a 1:1 can be a huge liability and I needed to keep my job. I ended up as her 1:1, at least for that day and in the future I would end up requesting to be her 1:1. I felt a connection to this girl that I couldn’t explain. She had some serious issues and I felt like I had something in common with her. I was hoping that I could help her in the way that I wished someone could help me. I remember a shy girl who didn’t want to be anywhere near the male staff. I remember how quiet she was and how hard I tried to talk to her. I got minimal, if any, response for a long time. Eventually, and I can’t remember at what point this happened, we started talking. I spent a lot of time with her in her room because Billie liked to isolate and since she was on a 1:1, I had an excuse to hang out. Once I learned Billie’s story, I was amazed. She is so strong and a true warrior. I am so glad to have kept in touch with Billie over the years. I really hope to see her again in person someday. We are miles apart but maybe a road trip is in order! Billie probably doesn’t know it but she has helped me so often, just by being who she is. They say people come into your life for a reason and I believe that. Billie, you are a warrior, an angel and a rock star! I love you!
Post 8
My name is Stephanie and I am a thriving survivor of sexual abuse. My life is filled with joy and happiness despite my past. I am a full time university student with the goal of becoming a professional psychologist. My intent is in helping as many survivors of sexual violence as I can because there is nothing more beautiful then seeing a victim transform into a survivor. I stand up for survivors in every way that I can wether it's doing fundraisers for sexual assault centers, being a friend to other survivors, or petitioning to speak about it on the Dr. Phil Show. (You can join my fight to get on Dr. Phil here on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124324194260583&%3Bref=ts) Fighting this epidemic brings so much joy in my life.
I have many hero's in my life and every one of them brings me an immense amount of joy. One of these hero's is a woman named Mariska Hargitay, she was the first person to shine a light in the darkness that had become my life. During my depression all I could manage to do was watch tv, but this ended up being what saved me. I quickly got into the show Law & Order Special Victims Unit and this is how Mariska entered my life. She plays detective Olivia Benson on the show and for those who are unaware of what the show is about, she plays a detective who works on sexual assault/child abuse cases. I became engrossed in the show and I still am to this day. I became an extreme fan of Mariska's not only because of her character on the show but also because of her true character. Because of the show and the character she plays, the statistics of sexual violence and child abuse was thrown right in her face. She was appalled with what she was learning and quickly ran to action. She created the Joyful Heart Foundation who's mission is to heal, educate and empower survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse and to shed light into the darkness that surrounds these issues. Joyful Heart has so much to offer from incredible healing retreats in Hawaii as well as local Urban retreats for survivors, they educate others on these topics, they spread awareness and they provide resources for those in need of help. A resent mission Mariska has taken on with the Joyful Heart Foundation is to eliminate the backlog of rape kits. In 2009 over 20,000 rape kits nationwide were never sent to crime labs to be tested and thousands more that were sent to crime labs sit there for years waiting to be tested. Mariska even met with members of Congress at the white house to urge efforts to reduce the rape kit backlog.
These are just some of the reason why this heroic woman brings me joy. It's because of her that you are reading these words that I write, it's because of her that I finally stood up and took my life back, it is because of her that I have all this passion burning in my soul. My ultimate goal in life is to work with Mariska in expanding the Joyful Heart Foundation to Canada. I will fight till I take my last breath to make this a reality and not just a dream. That is what brings joy to my life.
You can follow my blog at http://survivingvoice.blogspot.com/
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