Tag Archive: Child abuse


You don’t define me. Ch. 2

Filed under: Life — 1 Comment
April 4, 2019

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.” – Dave Pelzer, A Child Called “It”

One of the worse things I learned about myself is that I’m an accident and an abortion survivor. I won’t lie it’s something I often myself thinking about, wondering if I should even be alive. Sometimes I feel like I’m some great cosmic mistake who’s not suppose to be here, which would explain why I’m so broken, why all my relationships inevitably fall apart any why I always end up alone. But it’s also why I value my friendships so much, because everyone else drifts away and I often find myself the outcast, even among my own family. I grew up being very close with my cousins and siblings and watched as they all drifted away, hanging out with each other more and more and me less. I watched events unfold as if I’m just a passenger, or a witness. Watching everyone else develop these close relationships, inner jokes without me, as they invite me out less and less, until they stopped all together.

The day I learned about being an accident, should have been one of the best days of my life. On the day I graduated High School, my mother finally finally confessed to never loving me, telling me that my dad was the only one who wanted me. She told me that no one would ever love me, because I was worthless and too pathetic for anyone to love, which at the time combined with me having my heart broken and finding out the reason my heart had been broken was because I was betrayed by a good friend who I had trusted without question, only to learn she had betrayed me out of petty jealously. That revelation, coupled with my mom telling me how no one would ever love me, lead me to attempting suicide the first time. Because I had enough, I was tired of being hurt, being lied to, being manipulated and just losing all the time. I know everyone always likes to say suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem, or how people who commit suicide are just selfish. But they’re wrong, I was hurting, I was in pain and I couldn’t see an end to it. I had been hurting for 16 years and I just finally had enough, I broke and I fell to pieces.

The following is how it all began, I don’t know how I survived, or why I’m still here. But I can I’m grateful to still be here. My life was no fairy-tale, still isn’t, but I had a pretty awesome father, met some incredible people, dated some fantastic girls who I still believed were way out of my league and made the best friends anyone could ask for, friends who became my extended family.

When my father met my mother she already had a son from a previous marriage, but my dad had always loved kids and had wanted a child of his own. That being said he did love my older brother as if he was his own, which is something I do deeply believe, because I watched how my dad treated other kids who weren’t his, including my step-brother and sister.  However my father had always wanted to someone to carry on his own name and talked my mother into trying to have another child. My mother was reluctant and didn’t really want to have more kids at the time, but did always want a daughter.

However after several months of trying to no avail, they gave up on trying. Months later I was finally conceived. In the months following my mother’s pregnancy I became a weapon. I’ve come to learn about this after my mother tried convincing me that my father was abusive and that he used to beat her. My dad would later admit to me that he did get rough with her on a few occasions, but only because whenever she would get mad or upset with my dad, she would begin punching herself in the stomach while asking him how he liked it. She even went as far as throwing herself down a flight of steps on her stomach, threatening to kill me if she didn’t get her way. So my dad did admit that he did eventually snap and pin her to the ground, where he began hitting her face with his fingers, asking her how it felt, going as far as threatening her in no uncertain terms of what he would do if she killed me, or caused me to have brain damage from the abuse she was trying to inflict upon my unborn self.

Of course years later my mother confirmed my dad’s side of the story, by telling him, she tried having me aborted and when that didn’t take, she tried having a miscarriage and that the only reason I was ever born was because of my dad, telling me he was the only one who ever wanted me and made her have me.

After the divorce my mother would often tell me that my farther didn’t really love me and that he was only good to me so that I would go live with him when I became old enough to decide. Telling me that my dad just didn’t want to pay child support and if I lived with him he would send me to military school so that he would never have to see me anymore. Which in hindsight I realize that her threat didn’t make much since. If my dad merely wanted to get out of paying for child support, sending me to military school would be counter productive. But she would still tell me all these terrible things about my father, trying her best to turn me against him and worse it almost it worked. She had me questioning everything, I didn’t know what was true or what wasn’t. I was beginning to wonder if I was loved by either of my parents at all. I felt like a weapon that both parents tried using to hurt the other.

Eventually I did ask my dad about the abuse allegations my mom had said about my dad and her, he said, “Yeah, I’m not proud of it, I used to smack her around, but that was because whenever we had a fight while she was pregnant with you, she would start punching herself in stomach, or throw herself down a flight of stairs on her stomach, once she even tried stabbing herself in the stomach, so sometimes I would lose it, I would smack her or wrestle whatever weapon she was welding to get her to drop it. I had to hold her down to keep her from hurting you and you haven’t even born yet. So I yeah I said and did some things I wasn’t proud of, but when I see something like that, it hurt me and I lost it. I mean you were my son, it killed me seeing her trying to hurt you just to spite me.”

So when my mother once told me how she always wished I would just kill myself, because I was a mistake she never wanted. It was a truth I always suspected in a sense,  but never wanted to believe it. Yeah I hated her at times, but I still loved her, she was my mother and I wanted her to love and accept me. I kept thinking about the few times she was kind to me and it tore me apart. I was in the mindset that I had to somehow earn her love, believing I just wasn’t good enough. I longed for her love, I starved for it. Everyday I had wished and hoped I would have the kind of mother I could talk to about anything, to be comforted by her, not broken down day after day.

My birth didn’t help matters much, for my mother had been a model and had wanted to have a natural birth, like she did with my older brother. But I got turned around and started to come out backwards, forcing the doctors to perform an emergency C-section on my mother in order to save my life. (Promptly ending my mother’s career as a swimsuit model and I suppose giving her one more reason to hate me)

From what my dad tells me, they started fighting more and more. It got so bad that my dad started working all the time just to avoid having to go home to her. He preferred to be so tired from work he wouldn’t care about whatever fight my mother would try to have with him. In the weeks and months that followed after my birth, things between my parents had become strained. From what my dad tells me, they started fighting more and more. It got so bad that my mother would call up my dad’s work just to fight. Which prompted my dad into tell his work not to take her calls anymore. Things worsen and they’ve begun talking about getting separated. My dad would then spend more and more nights at his mom’s instead of going home, because she was driving him nuts.

The following is my dad’s recount of these events that my mother later confirmed, by telling me my dad had kidnapped me. But wouldn’t tell me how he managed to kidnap me. Only tell me that he was crazy and how I didn’t know how scary he could be.

My dad says “I just gotten off work earlier that day your mother had called my work and almost got me fired by trying to start a fight me with over the phone, so I had to hang up on her and told work if she called back to tell her I was busy. So when my shift ended I really didn’t want to go home and put up with her mouth, so I got in my truck and was about to just head over to my mom’s and stay the night. But As I started driving I heard a voice say telling me to go home. But I didn’t want to.

“So I was like ‘No way, if I go home she’s going be there and she’s going to want to fight and I can’t deal with it anymore.” ( I don’t know anyone’s religious views, but my dad believes it was God speaking to him and so do I )
God responded, “I said go home!’ and my father argued back and forth with the Lord until finally my dad relented and said,
“Okay, okay, I’ll go home and just get some clothes then I’m going to leave, is that okay with you? “He asked and was answered by silence.

 

My dad drove home that day against his better judgment and found my mother had taken my older brother and left, but she left me sleeping at the top of the stairs in my sleeping carrier, apparently she hadn’t even bothered to strap me in. But there I was, all alone asleep at the top of the stairs. My dad then picked me up, gathered my things and packed some his clothes, then took me to my grandma’s house.

My dad still has the old home movies chronicling my extended stay with me and him at my Grandma’s. My dad was all torn up about how anyone could abandon their child, he couldn’t believe someone would just leave a baby who could barely walk alone in a house, not knowing if or when my dad would ever come home. It then took my mother a week to call my dad and ask if he had me. Because apparently my mother took my older brother and left for God knows where and ‘forgot’ me. Then it took her a week to call around to see if my dad even had me and it was then she started going to work on manipulating my father into letting her see me.

I’ve learned the following from stories told me by both my father and mother at different times, I had to put the pieces together myself. My mother never told me that she had abandoned me in our house when she took my brother and left home. She only told me my dad had me at his mothers, but would never tell me how he had managed to take me, or why he was keeping me away from her. When I asked her, she only told me that my dad was crazy and a maniac.

 

After my mother finally got around to contacting my father and inquiring about me, she began asking to see me. At first my dad had refused, but then my mother began playing her games. She knew my father still had feelings for her and used those feelings to her advantage. She began telling my dad she wanted to talk through things and try to make it work, even going as far as telling my dad that her and her sister Terry had gotten me some new clothes and baby stuff that they wanted to give me. Eventually my mother managed to talk my dad into meeting at her parents place, under the guise it would be a neutral location. My dad was lead to believe that there was no way my mother or her sister would try anything with her mom and very elderly grandmother being at the house.

Figuring it would be safe to agree to my mother’s terms he went along with it and when he got there my mother began acting super sweet and complacent. All the while she kept asking my dad to let her hold me, which he refused, because he had a feeling if he let her hold me, she would try to take off. Eventually she talked him into bringing me into the house, showing off the new things her and Terry had gotten me. One of which being a new carrier, that she kept trying to talk my dad into letting me try out.

Eventually my dad reluctantly came into my house and sat me down in the carrier with my mother’s mom watching me. My mother then lead my father upstairs to her grandmother’s bedroom to talk and attempted to convince my dad into putting my diaper bag down which he adamantly refused.

Mother then began trying to seduce my dad, trying to get him to take off his clothes, but he kept saying no and freaking out a bit knowing her mom and grandmother were right downstairs. My mother continued telling my dad how sorry she was for everything, how much she loved him, cared about him and how much she needed him.

My mother then began taking off his belt and pulling down his pants and again my dad tries to resist. But she manages to distract him just enough to get his pants down, which is when she finally strikes and rips my baby bag from my dad’s shoulder, then shoves down. In a seconds my mother was out the bedroom door and down the steps, shouting for grandmother to get up stairs. Because my mother knew that my mother’s grandmother was very frail (She was in her 70s at this time) and knew my dad wouldn’t shove her down the steps in order to get to me.

My dad now well aware that this was all a setup, gets to his feet in little time, pulling on his pants and giving chase. He knew she intended on taking me back, why he had no idea, but he couldn’t risk letting her having my life back in her hands. So my dad explodes out of the bedroom after her and she’s already down the stairs and my dad’s heart sinks as he nears the stairs and sees her grandmother coming up. (My mother and her sister had sent her up to serve as a road block) By the time my dad gets past her, my mom is already outside loading me into the car.

“How can you let her do this?” My father asks my mom’s family, sickened by how they were and willing to risk her elderly grandmother with their whole charade. If my dad was any other person he could have very well shoved her down the stairs, but thankfully he didn’t.
By the time my dad was out of the house my mom is already pulling away and determined to get me back, my dad races to his truck and begins to chase after her..
(My dad tells his side slightly more colorfully with how he’d swore he was going to kill her for abandoning me, then stealing me) So then begun the car chase.

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You don’t define me. Ch1

Filed under: Life — 1 Comment
March 10, 2019

No one has the right to just abandon their child, because no matter what happens, that or those kids will always blame themselves, will always feel broken. My mother was not the greatest; she was a manipulator and a monster. Now I’m not saying that she was terrible all the time. She had moments where she could be very cool, kind and motherly. She would often fix me a separate meal because I was a picky eater and on rare occasion she would sit with me and watch T.V, then sometimes, just sometimes, we would talk and even make each other laugh and it would be real. However most of the time my mother was just plain cruel towards me and it often made me wonder why me? Why didn’t she love me? What was wrong with me? And what do I do wrong?

 

I watched as she showed love to my older brother, I watched how much she loved my younger brothers, but not me, no matter how hard I tried, or wanted her to accept and love me, she never did. In the very end, when it was all said and done she let me go, as if she hadn’t begged me to forgive her, to give her a second, third and fourth chance. It almost felt like it was all some weird, twisted and messed up game.

 

Of course I know I’m better off without her in my life, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less, because at the end of the day I still lost my mother. It still hurts whenever I see someone being a good mother and I can’t help but wish I got to experience that myself. Worse is the fact I didn’t just lose a mother, I lost an entire family. Some of whom I loved very much. With this being said, let me just say if you don’t want kids, or if your partner doesn’t want kids, don’t try to talk them into it, don’t force them. Because if both parents don’t love that child, that child will spend their whole life feeling like they did something wrong and they’ll feeling broken for all of their life. This is of course why I often say, I’m morally opposed to abortion, but I support pro-choice. Because I know what it’s like being denied loved, of being abused and broken. I’m well in my thirties and I still feel incomplete and just broken. It still hurts when the wind blows through this brokenness that’s inside of me. I keep hoping someday, I’ll find someone who’ll shake this broken out of me. Of course I’ve heard in a million different ways, a million different times, that I will never find love until I’m able to love myself. I even had a friend once tell me how strange it was to see how much love I had to give and show others when I never seemed to love myself. But I’ve learned that self-love doesn’t always come first, or second, or sometimes not ever. But I’m hopefully that someday, I’ll love someone enough to give them all the love I couldn’t give myself and find a reason to breathe again, to face tomorrow and the day after. .

 

But for as long as I can remember I’ve always been a very imaginative and creative soul. Even to this day, I sometimes play pretend whenever I’m alone, imagining myself being or doing something heroic, imagining what it would be like to be a hero. I’ve dreamed and fantasized this almost every day, with this belief, that if I saved the day, stopped a bad guy, saved someone, that I would be something. I would be talked about and people would open their eyes and see the real me for who I am. That also in doing so I would be loved and accepted, so much so that even my mother would see the value in me.

 

Growing up, I never belonged to a group or a clique; I only ever had a very small group of friends that I could count on one hand. This was mainly because they took a chance on me when everyone else saw an outcast, a loser, a dweeb, or a freak. I had speech problems growing up, buckteeth and warts and I had been made fun of and mocked so many times by both my peers and family, that in time, I gradually began withdrawing from people. I grew shy and backwards because I saw people as cruel and mean.

 

I never really knew why I was the way I was, or at least I didn’t for very long time. It was only recently in my life that I discovered that I have C-PTSD, complex post traumatic stress disorder. Which I spoke about in my previous chapter.

 

Over the years, I’ve struggled. I believed I just had depression and anxiety. It wasn’t until friend suggested I get checked for C-PTSD because she had been diagnosed with the disorder and saw I had many of the similar symptoms as her. At first I was resistant, I had always assumed that PTSD is something reserved only for those who have seen or experienced combat of some kind. But as resistant as I was, I grew to accept that I do have C-PTSD, and it opened up my eyes. I recognized that a lot of my traits that I could never really understand before now made sense. For example, when I break down and cry during an argument, or when I’m stressed. Why I often rationalize taking my own life. Also why I sometimes over-reach out of a desire to be accepted and liked, such as at time times when I have been too nice. Wanting to buy gifts for people I just met, or wanting to do something special for people I meet to win their acceptance, or sometimes just me being overly friendly without seeing how it can seen from an outside perspective. Sometimes I wish I could just wear a sign, or a warning label that just reads.

“I’m a broken individual and emotionally damaged, I want to be accepted and just want everyone to like me.” Or something along those lines, or maybe I should just get business cards made just inform people of my diagnoses that say

“I’m not my depression, I’m not my anxiety, I’m not my C-PTSD, I’m just me and I’m trying my best, I want to be better, I’m trying.”

I have scars; we all do and having scars don’t say or define who we are. Maybe you used to cut yourself, maybe you still do. Maybe you were hurt, been in an accident, seen combat, or maybe you were physically, emotionally or sexually abused. These scars don’t say who we are, or even who we were. They simply tell a story of what we’ve been through. Some scars we’ll carry our entire lives, while others fade in time. But we all heal at different speeds and sometimes we’re cut deeper, which is why the worse thing anyone can say to someone who’s been hurt, is telling them how you dealt with an issue you believe to be similar. Because sometimes, what wounded us, cut us deeper, it doesn’t make those of us who were wounded any less, or weaker than you. Just means the situation was different for us. Which is why some wounds never fully heal and why some scars will always remain. I know most of my scars are hidden and impossible for anyone to really see, I’ve pretended I was okay when I wasn’t. I smiled and laughed on the outside while in reality I was dying inside. I’ve been out with family and friends, pretending I was happy all the while thinking about taking my own life. Because I’ve grown so tired of hurting, of being alone and feeling broken.

 

When I first attempted to talk about my struggles and my past, I admit I was scared. I was afraid no one would believe me, or they would just think less of me and see me as some sort of victim. I was also a little afraid that those who knew my mother would try to defame me in some way. Like when my older brother found my blog and wanted to deny everything I was saying, because he rarely ever saw the mother that I did.

 

I told him as much and I told him that, I think deep down he knows something was off about how she treated me. But he didn’t want to see it, because growing up, my mother always said the same thing to him, “

Your real dad and Robert (my dad) never loved you or wanted you, I’m the only one who wanted you and who loves you.” She also treated my brother very well, always defending him, talking to him when he acted out and always supported him. So I told Dominic, that he couldn’t see the truth because of what it would mean. The truth for him would mean that he ignored me the few times I told him how I believed our mother hated me, or the times he saw me crying, alone in our room. Admitting the truth would mean, he let it happen, he let it go on and he didn’t try to stop it, speak up or protect me. He never saw the correlation between the times he would tease and make fun of me and how our mother would laugh with him, or even join in on making fun of me. But whenever I made fun of him, our mother would beat and ground me.

You see, as anyone would tell you, the most unreliable witness in any circumstance is memory. The human brain is spectacular at playing tricks on itself to help people remember what they want to remember. It’s why some people will swear with all sincerity and zero doubt that a light was green; when it really wasn’t or recall details they couldn’t possibly have known. It’s not that any of these people are really wrong, or less intelligent then those who can remember every detail of a specific event, or moment in their life, it’s just basic neuroscience. Recollections often fade, like photos left in sunlight.
As for me, I’m broken and I’m in pain, I’ve been hurt by someone who should have loved me more than anything, but she broke me instead. I’m not special, I don’t have a photographic memory, I’m terrible with names and I’m just awful with dates. I can’t tell you what I wore two weeks ago. But I do have a knack for remembering events, conversations and the way things felt and how they affected me. I can’t tell you what the love of my life wore the day she broke up with me, I can only tell you the words she said and how I felt my world spiral and fall apart.

More often than sometimes, people ask me how I can remember the things that I do about the way something happened or how I recall past conversations with such clarity. So I tell them it’s not a trick, I just remember details and the way a particular event affected me. I was always a little bit strange in this aspect, because for as far back as I can remember, I would use any and every solitary moment in my life to reflect, contemplate and just think about everything that happened on that particular day. Such as when I surprised my dad recently when he asked if I ever saw him cry and I told him just once. He laughed and asked when and I told him, it was at Grandma’s house, I was playing on the couch with my ninja turtles and giant army tank, when I heard him tell my grandma that it was really over and he broke down crying, saying how much he loved her.  I quietly stopped what I was doing and went over to him, wrapped my arms around his neck and told him I loved him as I climbed up into his lap. I will always remember how he wrapped his arms around me and how my grandma soon joined in on this hug. It was the first time I ever really felt worried and hurt for someone other than myself, for someone who was real. Because yes, I would often cry from watching sad movies, reading sad stories and would often be called names because of this. But back then, I was still too young to really know what a divorce was, or what it meant. But I knew my dad was hurt and I knew he loved my mother despite how bad it was between them or how often they had fought.

Now I don’t know how I’ll turn out in my retelling of these events, victim, hero, villain, or simply a survivor. But I can tell you this is my story and I’m coming clean, I may not always be the hero, I know I didn’t always make the right choices. I don’t know who I am in my story; I’ll leave that to you. I know I’m not the hero, that station I reserve for those who helped me through it all. Some have been family, but the majority had been friends who have become my family.  In the past I’ve always been incredibly reluctant and guarded about my past, something born out of fear of being ostracized, accused of playing the victim, or simply crying out for attention, or worse, not being believed at all. A lot of I’ve come to learn is the result of me being gas lighted by mother. Who always told me I was making things worse than what they were, or tell me how I was brainwashed by my father and his family. She would always bring up how she made my separate meals because of how picky I was, then tell me how my father wouldn’t put with it and that he wanted to send me to military school, etc. Sometimes she would even break down crying, pretending she was hurt that I would even question if she loved me or not.
But I was also often threatened with what would happen if I ever told anyone about what happened when I was at home. Once she told me I would be put up for adoption and would be raped if I told anyone about what was going on at home. She then told me what rape was and I was a child. I was told time again, that family business shouldn’t be talked about or shared with anyone outside that immediate family unit, followed up with the thinly veiled threats, of all the things she would do and would happen to me if I did. This is my story, from beginning to end, told as honestly as I know how.

If you read this far. I could use your help in getting this series published into a book format. It’s my hope that as a book this would reach more people and hopefully help them. But I’m broke, lost my job just before Christmas and slowly getting back on my feet. So if you can help with the publishing cost, I will greatly appreciate it. I thought about trying the kickstarter thing, but I don’t have any rewards I could offer anyone who donated, because at the end of the day all I have are my words.
https://www.gofundme.com/getting-published-quotyou-don039t-define-mequot

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You don’t define me.

Filed under: Life — 4 Comments
March 4, 2019

The first time I attempted suicide I was eighteen years old and I had just graduated High School. I should have been looking forward to the future, getting a job, working, continuing my education and having the time of my life. Instead, what should have been one of the best days of my life, quickly turned to one of the worst days of life and for the longest time, things didn’t get any better.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from depression, anxiety and C-PTSD. Back then I really didn’t know what depression was, or what it meant to suffer from it. I only I was unhappy with my lot in life and had often hoped and prayed to be involved in a school shooting or an accident, just so that I would die. The only thing that kept me from killing myself up until I attempted to so was my faith, I didn’t want to risk going to hell and the fact I was terrified of the pain, as well as surviving having done serious damage to myself. I was suffering and didn’t know what to do and no one seemed to want to listen.

 

Whenever someone mentions being depressed, having anxiety, a form of PTSD, most people tend to just roll their eyes. Which is understandable, they’ve become such thrown about phrases that they’ve almost lost all meaning, no one knows if someone is just being dramatic, just wanting attention, or is honestly crying out for help. It’s this fear of not being taken seriously, or mocked that often prevent us from speaking up.

Worse though for me, is when people tell me to get over it, or try to compare their struggles with mine and how they’re fine. Telling me I need to buck up, toughen up and just let go as if it were that easy. In truth no one can really understand what it’s like being me unless you’re like me. This goes for everyone, I know everyone gets depressed from time to time, that everyone experiences anxiety in one form or another. But that’s different from being clinically depressed and living with anxiety every day.

 

Those of us who suffer as I do know that it doesn’t just go away, I wish it did, I really do. But I struggle with my demons every day; I have both good days, bad days and really bad days. They’re days when I want to avoid people, just because it’s so exhausting or just because I don’t even like being around myself. Then I have terrible days, those are the days when I need to be rescued more than ever. But almost every day I think about taking my own life. Yes, it’s because I have depression and I have C-PTSD, it’s also that most of the time, I’m just so tired of hurting, of being lonely, of struggling just to get by and just being let down. I once told someone that the only person, who disappointed me more than God, was them.

 

Truth is, depression isn’t cute or funny and it’s definitely not sexy. It’s a living thing. It exists by feeding on your darkest moods and emotions and it’s always hungry. It never really goes away. Anything that challenges it, anything that makes you feel good, anyone who brings you joy, it will drive them away so it can grow without interference. Its goal is to isolate you. At its worst, it will literally paralyze you, rather than allow you to feel anything at all. At its worst, you are numb and you are drained and immobilized by it. And it’s not that those of us who suffer from the disease want to push you away. For there have been times I could be in a room surrounded by friends and family and still feel no one else’s’ warmth or touch. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been surrounded by people and still felt alone, hurt and like a burden or a joke to all those I loved and care about.

 

I’ve always believed that everyone else would be so much happier if I just went away. You see depression sucks, I mean it literally sucks, it takes away your happiness, your joy, leaving you as nothing more than a hollowed out husk of the person you were before. But that’s how depression works; it’ll drive you to your knees with the soul crushing weight that no one should ever have to bare alone. It will prey on your darkest thoughts, telling you that no one loves you and it’ll tell you that every negative thought you ever had about yourself is true and how bleak your future really is.

 

I’ve come to learn however that depression lies. But I still wrestle with it. It’s an ongoing thing that never goes away. Yeah there’s medication out there, but that takes awhile to find the right dosage. Even then I had stop taking it, because the pills just made it hard for me to focus. It was like my head was in this thick fog and my creativity; my dreams and passions couldn’t find their way through. And the pills never really stopped the suicidal thoughts that still crept into my mind. So I try to combat it by keeping myself busy, staying active. But every day is still a struggle. Because depression doesn’t play fair, it’ll take any advantage it has to gain control, to grow and to eventually destroy you, worse is how seductive it can be sometimes. Like someone calling you to bed after a long hard day and telling you how you deserve a little rest and relaxation.

 

Having anxiety on top of depression often validates your depression. Anxiety is debilitating. It feels like a constant heaviness in your mind; like something isn’t quite right, although oftentimes you don’t know exactly what that something is. But it feels like acid in your stomach, burning and eating away at the emptiness and taking away any feelings of hunger. It’s like a tight knot that you can’t untwist. Anxiety feels like your mind is on fire, over thinking and over analyzing every little, irrelevant detail. Sometimes, it makes you feel restless, becoming constantly distracted. It feels as if your thoughts are running wild in a million different directions, bumping into each other along the way. Other times, it makes you feel detached, as if your mind has gone blank and you are no longer mentally present. You dissociate and feel as if you have left your own body. For me anxiety feels like there is a voice in the back of my mind telling me that everything is not okay, when everything in fact is. Sometimes the voice tells me that there is something wrong with me and that I’m different from everybody else, that I’m a failure, that everyone is judging me, or just pitying me. Other times, it feels like taking a test you’ve been studying for and when you look down at the questions nothing makes sense and you don’t know any of the answers, worse is it feels like your whole life, your future is determined by how you answer.
In short, It’s like this voice that tells you that your feelings are bad and that you’re a burden to the world and that you should isolate. It makes everyday tasks, such as making simple decisions, incredibly difficult. Anxiety can keep you up at night — tossing and turning. It’s like a light-bulb that comes on at the most inconvenient times and won’t switch off. Your body feels exhausted, but your mind feels wide awake and racing. You go through the events of your day, analyzing and agonizing over every specific detail. Much like depression, anxiety never really goes away. It sucks and I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.

So when I discovered I’ve also been dealing with C-PTSD from the years of childhood abuse I’ve endured. I was like “Wow…that’s swell.” I didn’t want to believe I had yet another psychological disorder. But understanding what it was I had, helped me understand more about myself, why I am the way I am. Because for years I’ve had people tell me I was just weak, how I should have went into the military to be toughened up. But in truth, I’m a bit of a badass, because I’m still here despite my issues.

You see In PTSD, your brain may replay a incident over and over again to help you process your emotions. It can become an endless loop that is actually more upsetting than the initial incident, as your unexpressed emotions continue to pile up.

 

C-PTSD is ongoing or repeated interpersonal trauma, where the victim is traumatized in captivity, and where there is no perceived way to escape. Ongoing child abuse is captivity abuse because the child cannot escape. Domestic violence is another example. Forced prostitution/sex trafficking is another.
The following are some of the symptoms and impact most felt by complex trauma survivors.

 

1. Deep Fear Of Trust People who endure ongoing abuse, particularly from significant people in their lives, develop an intense and understandable fear of trusting people. If the abuser were parents or caregivers, this intensifies. Ongoing trauma wires the brain for fear and distrust. It becomes the way the brain copes with any further potential abuse. Complex trauma survivors often find trusting people very difficult, and it takes very little for any trust built to be destroyed. The brain senses issues and this overwhelms the already severely-traumatized brain. This fear of trust is extremely impactful on a survivor’s life. Trust can be learned with support and an understanding of trusting people slowly and carefully. This takes times and patience. Believe me when I say, people like me are trying.

 

2. Terminal Aloneness
This is a phrase I used to describe to my Therapist — the terribly painful aloneness I have always felt little connection and trust with people, people like me often remain in a terrible state of aloneness, even when surrounded by people. I described it once as having a glass wall between myself and other people. I can see them, but I cannot connect with them. Another issue that increases this aloneness is feeling different to other people. Feeling damaged, broken and unable to be like other people can haunt a survivor, increasing the loneliness. It’s like feeling like a living ghost.

3. Emotion Regulation

Intense emotions are common with complex trauma survivors like myself. It is understandable that ongoing abuse can cause many different and intense emotions. This is normal for complex trauma survivors. Learning to manage and regulate emotions is vital in being able to manage all the other symptoms, but it’s not easy and incredibly difficult. Best way I can describe this is, imagine you’re on a strict, healthy diet, and every day you have to drive in a car, or sit at a table watch someone eat your favorite food, where they’re always asking you if you want some and you always have to say “No.” Now multiply that by like a thousand.

4. Emotional Flashbacks flashbacks are something all PTSD survivors can deal with, and there are three types:
Visual Flashbacks – where your mind is triggered and transported back to the trauma, and you feel as though you are reliving it.

 

Somatic Flashbacks – where the survivor feels sensations, pain and discomfort in areas of the body, affected by the trauma. This pain/sensations cannot be explained by any other health issues, and are triggered by something that creates the body to “feel” the trauma again.

 

Emotional Flashbacks – the least known and understood, and yet the type complex trauma survivors can experience the most and what I suffer from. These are where emotions from the past are triggered. Often the survivor does not understand these intense emotions are flashbacks, and it appears the survivor is being irrationally emotional. When I learned about emotional flashbacks, it was a huge light bulb moment of finally understanding why I have intense emotions. Why I tend to break down in tears when having an argument, or just trying to tell someone I can’t do something they were counting on me to do. This is because the emotions I felt back when I was a kid are being triggered all at once. But, there is no visual of the trauma – as with visual flashbacks. So, it takes a lot of work to start to understand when experiencing an emotional flashback.

 

5. Hypervigilance about People
Most people with PTSD have hypervigilance, where the person scans the environment for potential risks and likes to have their back to the wall.
But complex trauma survivors often have a deep subconscious need to “work people out.” Since childhood, I have been aware of people’s non-verbal cues; their body language, their tone of voice, their facial expressions. I also subconsciously learn people’s habits and store away what they say. Then if anything occurs that contradicts any of this, it will immediately flag as something potentially dangerous.
This can be exhausting. And it can create a deep skill set of discernment about people. The aim of healing fear-based hyper-vigilance is turning it into non-fear-based discernment
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6. Loss Of Faith
Complex trauma survivors often endure a loss of faith. I have struggled with my faith more times tan I care to admit. I often thought if I take my own life, God would have to apologize to me.
But this loss of faith doesn’t have to just be about religion, but faith in people, the world being good and about yourself. Complex trauma survivors often view the world as dangerous and people as all potentially abusive, which is understandable when having endured ongoing severe abuse.
Many complex trauma survivors walk away from their religious beliefs. For example, to believe in a good and loving God who allows suffering and heinous abuse to occur can feel like the ultimate betrayal. This is something needing considerable compassion.

7. Profoundly Hurt Inner Child
Childhood complex trauma survivors, often have a very hurt inner child that continues on to affect the survivor in adulthood. When a child’s emotional needs are not met and a child is repeatedly hurt and abused this deeply and profoundly affects the child’s development. A survivor will often continue on subconsciously wanting those unmet childhood needs in adulthood. Looking for safety, protection, being cherished and loved can often be normal unmet needs in childhood, and the survivor searches for these in other adults. This can be where survivors search for mother and father figures. Transference issues in counseling can occur and this is normal for childhood abuse survivors. I can’t tell you how many times I met a girlfriend’s parents and would often begin viewing their mother as a motherly figure for me. Even my last supervisor, I found myself thinking of her as a motherly figure and she inherently had a very motherly personality, where my department would often refer to her as the mother of the circulation department.

 

8. Helplessness and Toxic Shame
Due to enduring ongoing or repeated abuse, the survivor can develop a sense of hopelessness — that nothing will ever be OK. They can feel so profoundly damaged, they see no hope for anything getting better. When faced with long periods of abuse, it does feel like there is no hope of anything changing. And even when the abuse or trauma stops, the survivor can continue on having these deep core level beliefs of hopelessness. This is intensified by the terribly life-impacting symptoms of complex PTSD that keep the survivor stuck with the trauma, with little hope of this easing. Toxic shame is a common issue survivors of complex trauma endure. Often the perpetrators of the abuse make the survivor feel they deserved it, or they were the reason for it. Often survivors are made to feel they don’t deserve to be treated any better.

 

9. Repeated Search For A Rescuer
Subconsciously looking for someone to rescue them is something many survivors understandably think about during the ongoing trauma and this can continue on after the trauma has ceased. The survivor can feel helpless and yearn for someone to come and rescue them from the pain they feel and want them to make their lives better. This sadly often leads to the survivor seeking out the wrong types of people and being re-traumatized repeatedly.

 

10. Dissociation
When enduring ongoing abuse, the brain can utilize dissociation as a coping method. This can be from daydreaming to more life-impacting forms of dissociation such as dissociative identity disorder (DID). This is particularly experienced by child abuse survivors, who are emotionally unable to cope with trauma in the same way an adult can.

 

11. Persistent Sadness and Being Suicidal
Complex trauma survivors often experience ongoing states of sadness and severe depression. Mood disorders are often co-morbid with complex PTSD.
Complex trauma survivors are high risk for suicidal thoughts, suicide idealization and being actively suicidal. Suicide idealization can become a way of coping, where the survivor feels like they have a way to end the severe pain if it becomes any worse. Often the deep emotional pain survivors feel, can feel unbearable. This is when survivors are at risk of developing suicidal thoughts.

 

12. Muscle Armoring
Many complex trauma survivors, who have experienced ongoing abuse, develop body hyper-vigilance. This is where the body is continually tensed, as though the body is “braced” for potential trauma. This leads to pain issues as the muscles are being overworked. Chronic pain and other issues related such as chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia can result. Massage, guided muscle relaxation and other ways to manage this can help.

 

All of these issues are very normal for complex trauma survivors. Enduring complex trauma is not a normal life experience, and therefore the consequences it creates are different, yet very normal for what they have experienced and endured.

 

Not every survivor will endure all these, and there are other symptoms that can be endured. I always suggest trauma-informed counseling if that is accessible. There are medications available to help with symptoms such as anxiety and depression. But they tend to be fairly expensive.
Lastly, I advise that empathy, gentleness and compassion are required for complex trauma survivors. We are not people and trust me when I say, we are trying and doing our best.
Now all of this was a long way of be saying, I’m going to try to publish a book based off my series “Scars Of Who We Are.” but through the lens of now knowing that I have C-ptsd. I’ll also be going more in depth about what it was like growing up in an abusive home, developing c-ptsd, surviving bullies and my own suicide attempts when it all became too much for me to handle, but more importantly how I survived. If you like to help, please donate to my campaign, give as little as or as much as you’d like. Then maybe together we can work to end the stigmata and help those who need it, get the help they need. Thank you. https://www.gofundme.com/getting-published-quotyou-don039t-define-mequot&rcid=r01-155172294681-3f3710972b504c1c&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

Josh A. Cooper.

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I’m still here, a continued C-PTSD journey to recovery.

Filed under: Life — Leave a comment
August 29, 2018

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”

― Judith Lewis Herman

During my time of growing, healing and recovering from my past traumas, I’ve come to the decision of my rewriting my blog series, “Scars of who we are” and attempt to break it down into novel format, in hopes of reaching others. My hope is to let people know they aren’t alone and don’t have to continuing being a victim, or victimized, or question themselves, their sanity and value.

I learned firsthand what it’s like to love someone who hurts you. Despite how badly my mother had treated me majority of the time, a part of me still loved her, cared about her and wanted more than anything for her to acknowledge me as her son. To show me just an ounce of the love she had shown any of my brothers. It sucks seeing someone you care about love and care for everyone else but you. Which lead me to having a bit of a break down when I was talking to my dad and had asked him, “Why didn’t she love me? What was wrong so wrong with me?”

I deeply longed for a good relationship with my mother, I wanted to be able to talk and confide in her, to trust her. I wanted her to love me as she had loved my older brother. Growing up I often thought if I was better, smarter, more talented, or thoughtful she would see me as her son and love me as such. Every day I prayed to God to just let her love me and to take away whatever it was that made her hate me. That being said, my mother wasn’t always horrible towards me, like many narcissistic abusers she would be kind to me sometimes. She could be silly and funny, which would always end a little strangely. It wasn’t ever that she was just goofing off with me, it was how abruptly it would end and she would be upset with me, or suddenly get very angry at me. It was almost as if she felt like I had somehow tricked her into not hating me for a little awhile. The shift was always sudden and seemed to come out of nowhere.

Still, I do remember when albeit vaguely how she used to read to me before bed when I was a kid and I think it’s what ignited my love for stories and expanded my imagination. My mother was also an amazing cook, she made the best brownies and chocolate chip cookies. She was also very creative and crafty in in her own right. Strangely enough, even though she rarely stayed up past 11pm, the few times she had she was cool. I don’t know what it was about the late-night hours that made her kinder and more motherly, but more often than not, whenever it was late at night, she would be kind of motherly towards me. She would actually talk to me like I was a person and not like someone she despised. Now it didn’t happen every time she stayed up late, but enough for me to realize it was a side of her I wished I saw more often.

Even still there is one moment when I was fifteen that always struck me as odd, something that not even my therapist really understands why this happened, knowing what she had learned about my mother, something that stuck with me. As you can imagine the older I got the worse my mother had treated me, with periodic episodes of kindness. (Also, whenever we were in public or around certain people my mother would be mother of the year. A façade that would quickly fall away once we either in the car or at home.) But there was this one night when I was fifteen, where I had awoken in the middle the night, shivering. I quickly discovered I had somehow managed to kick off my covers while I was asleep.
So still half asleep, I began blindly fumbling for my covers, when I heard someone at my bedroom door. Fearing it was my mother, I quickly laid back down and pretended to be asleep. Then through the slits of my eyes, I watched as my door slowly cracked open and I saw my mother poking her head into my room. I immediately felt my heart seize in my chest as I recalled all the times she dragged me out of bed, feeling her nails bite into my flesh as she would wrench me out of the bed by the arm. So I lay as still as I could, also remembering all the times she had caught me reading in med, or playing a handheld videogame, when I was supposed to be sleeping.

I kept hoping she would close my door and just go on down the hall away from my room, but she didn’t. Instead, I heard her silently pushing my door open and I could see her through the slits of my eyes silently stepping into my room, towards my bed. In my head I kept begging God to make her leave, to just turn around and walk out of my bedroom and to just leave me alone.
She didn’t leave, but then the strangest thing happened. I felt her untangling my blankets and then she proceeded to tuck me in. Needless to say I didn’t know what to think, I was completely stunned and didn’t fully understand or comprehend what she was doing, or why. She had never shown me this kind of tenderness or affection for as long as I could remember. Then I felt her lips gently kiss the top of my head and she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Then she caressed my cheek and gave me a gentle squeeze on my shoulder and silently slipped back out of my room. When I told my therapist about this event, even she was stumped. Much like it has been for me, this sudden act of love was something very rare, very random and I’m 98% certain that there was no way she could have known I was awake when she came into my room that night.

Of course I was so love deprived, that every night after that for a week, I would kick off my blankets on purpose and would go as far as leaving my bedroom door cracked open in hopes the same event would repeat itself. Sadly it never did and I never brought it up to my mother either. I guess in a way I was a little afraid that if I brought it up to her it would have broke whatever strange magic was at work that night. Unfortunately just a year later, I would be assaulted by her as I was attempting to take out the trash. It was on that night that I had finally had enough and shoved her off of me and told that I had finally had enough and was finally going to leave and live with my dad. My mother ended up falling into my room and began at hitting me, scratching me, shoving me. Then when I raised an arm to keep her from hitting me, she dared me to hit her. Begged me and tried provoking me to hit her. By shoving me, hitting me, taunting me as she said, “Go on hit me! It’s what I want you to do, I want you to hit me! It’s what I’ve always wanted you to do! Because I’ll finally be able to call Chris (My cop step-dad) And have him arrest your ass tonight, your aunt’s husband is rich, he knows judges and I can make it where you go Juvy, to prison and never see your dad, or anyone you love every again. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do to you!”

Luckily I didn’t hit her, but I did threaten to call the cops myself and let them see the marks that she had left on me. But when I went to the phone, she broke down crying, begged me not to call the police, told me how if I did, I would cause my brothers to lose their mother. She told me how my older brother had no one else and asked me if I could really take away the only parent he had. She then apologized profusely, promised me she’d never hit me again and that things would get better. I dumbly agreed and didn’t call the police like I should have, like I wished I would have done, what I should have done.

But…All I could do was think about all the times I overheard my mother telling my older brother how his father never wanted him and how my father didn’t want him either, how she was the only one who had wanted him. When in truth my father couldn’t fight for custody of my older brother, since he wasn’t his biological son and my dad’s lawyer had told him fighting for custody for my older brother would be a lost cause.

Though still, every now and again, I find myself thinking back to that might when my mother crept into my room, tucked me in and shown me genuine love. I can’t tell you how many times I sat and wondered why she apologized to me in that moment, when she thought I was asleep. Some people have told me their theories, everything from her being possessed and she managed to break free for that one moment. Others believe she had an epiphany and realized how badly she had treated me or had a moment of clarity and realized in that moment that she was mentally ill and couldn’t help how she treated me. Sadly I don’t have any answers, I can tell you that there have been times when I wondered if maybe she was preparing me for something, or knew something I didn’t about my future and maybe she thought treating me so horribly would make strong, or a better person. Truth is I don’t know the answer and I don’t think I ever will. I do know I struggle day to day and I’m always fighting my demons who’re always telling me I should kill myself, that I’m worthless, pathetic and a burden to all those around me. I know the reason I struggle with these demons is because of what my mother had put me through. No kid should ever be afraid of going home, of talking to their parents. No kid deserves to have a parent call them stupid, or ugly, or that they need to have plastic surgery. All I ever wanted was to feel and be a part of something, a family, to be and feel and be loved. It’s what everyone deserves.

 

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Leaving the gaslight on. (The journey to heal)

Filed under: Life — 6 Comments
August 14, 2018

  “It is not okay for someone you like to treat you poorly and then pretend it didn’t happen, making you question your own grasp on reality. This dynamic is called gaslighting. It’s a common tactic of abusers to shift the focus of the blame from their bad behavior onto the person they are victimizing. One important side effect of gaslighting is having your memory “black out” after a fight (because your brain is trying to protect you from the cruelty of the abuse), which results in not being able to remember how an argument started. You may start to internalize the idea that there is something wrong with you and that you did something to provoke the situation as you’re increasingly beaten down and confused.”  ― Shannon Weber

I don’t know how to ever really describe what it was like growing up with my mother and being around her family. It’s the question I get asked more often, which is “Why didn’t you ever say anything, or tell anyone? Over the years I gave a few reasons, which were all true. The first being I was afraid, I was afraid of the many threats my mother made to me. She used to also tell me if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me and would just think less of me. I was also afraid of being believed and being made fun for being abused by my mother, I don’t know why, I guess I would have to blame media who portrayed fathers as being these, imposing and terrifying figures, as oppose to mothers who have often been a victim themselves or at worse a someone who denied the abuse was even occurring at home.

In therapy, I have learned one of the more prime reasons I didn’t say anything sooner, was because I was afraid of being called a liar, as the result of my mother’s gaslighting me for several years. Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s beliefs. All of which my mother was a master at. My mother was so skilled at this, that when she overheard my older brother and I talking about how she used to backhand and beat us at the kitchen table if we chewed with our mouths full, put our elbows on the table, or made too much noise while taking a drink, my mother became livid. She denied ever hitting us at the dinner table, going as far as breaking down into tears for thinking she would have ever done that. She was so effective in her denial, that in two weeks, my older brother came to believe her. Later telling me that she had never hit either of us. When I still distinctly remembered being backhanded and beaten cause she saw me chew with my mouth open, or because my elbows touched the table. He had become so adamant about it not happening, it was unsettling. Thankfully, I knew and still remembered clearly the numerous times I was beaten at the table. Granted not a good memory at all, but in the way my brother and I had talked and joked about it, because we were commenting how my younger brothers would get time out and we would get beaten. Although yes, my older brother occasionally gotten beat, whereas I would get beat all the time.

Still it was strange seeing how quickly my brother not only seemed to forget but would deny ever happened. However, my dad remembered seeing her haul off and beat me or my brother at the dinner table at the slightest infraction. My dad even told me the first time he saw it and asked why she was beating me, she said it was because my elbows were on the table. So my dad had pointed out that I was four and then sat his elbows on the table and dared her to hit him, like she was hitting me. (I don’t remember this particular instance, but I do remember being hit a lot for stupid little things and the one time my dad got so furious over it, he threw his plate in the trash along with all the other food she had cooked, except for what was on mine and my brother’s plate.)

My mother is a narcissist who uses  gaslighting techniques to have power over others. Which is more effective than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique used by abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed. For example, the few times I tried calling my mother out on how she was treating me, she would tell me that I was crazy. She would insist that my dad was responsible and that he had brainwashed me into  believing she was this horrible person. Sometimes she would break down and cry, telling me she loved me because she always made me dinner and special meals just for me because of my being a picky eater, which I am. She used the gifts she had gotten me for my birthday, or Christmas to tell me it was proof that she loved me. Ironically she would always bash my father to me, telling me how my father was the one who always beat me, that he used to beat her and my older brother and how selfish he was. However my father never struck me out of anger and when he did used to give me whooping, it was two or three swats then he was done. My dad used to tell me how much he hated having to give me a paddling and it showed. Because when my mother would beat me with the paddle, she would hit me as hard as she could, several times, more if I cried out, or tried to wiggle away. Then she would beat me some more if I ended up crying afterwards. She didn’t just beat my ass, by my hands, lower back, the back of my thighs, etc and this was with a thick, wooden paddle.

The few times I’ve tried calling her out on her treatment of me, she would accuse me of being dramatic, tell me I was being crazy. Say I was exaggerating things, making things out to be worse than what they were. Which often made me wonder if she was right. I can’t tell you how many times I wondered if she was right, if I was really crazy or not. A part of me even acknowledged that she did make me my own little meals every day, she did on rare occasion treat me well.  However she would always use the good things she done as a way to tell me she loved me and that if she didn’t she would have done those nice things for me. Even though it didn’t change the fact that I slowly found myself becoming afraid of her. Because I never knew what she would do, or how she would react, but I did know that she liked to ruin me every chance she got. If I spent a summer with my dad and came home talking about all the things he and I did together, she would say, “Oh he’s not treating you like a son, he’s treating you more like a buddy. He only did those things, so you’d go live with him and stop him from having to pay child support, he doesn’t really love you or care about you. Not like I do. He’s just using you and trying to manipulate you.” And just like that, the euphoria I had over a summer well spent would be suddenly tarnished. I would be hurt and devastated and a part of me always wondered what if she was right?

Such was growing up with her. If I ever questioned her methods or tried calling her out on how she treated me, she would tell me I was crazy, tell me it was all in my head, insist on telling me how much worse things could be. Once she even told me if I ever told anyone about what was going on at home, the police would come and take me and my brother away, she told me my dad wouldn’t be able to get custody of me and I would go to an orphanage, where I would get molested and raped. And explained to me in a rudimentary way of what that entailed, because at the time of her telling me that I was still quite young and didn’t know what those words meant.

My mother even went out of her way telling the rest of her family and my older brother that I was crazy, how I had been brainwashed into disliking her by my father, how I would always overexaggerate, making things worse than what they were and how I always played the victim. So the few times I tried reaching out and asking for help, they would look at me and say “Oh yeah, your mother warned us you would say something like that, you know she doesn’t hate you, she buys you clothes and makes you food.” Which doesn’t prove one way or another that someone loves you. The best manipulators and abusers out there will do some good things for you. Just so they can make you doubt yourself just enough. Luckily for me, I did wonder if everything was in my head, so I got to the point where I wouldn’t say anything negative about my mother or her family. Then I would invite friends over or leave my phone on when she would yell and scream at me, insult me. It got so bad that one of my best friends had told his parents and they offered to adopt me, or to just let me live with them on more than one occasion. I also mentioned before how I once brought a girlfriend for her and her family to meet during the holidays and afterwards she told me how she didn’t like my mom or her family. When I asked why, she said,

“Because they all talk down to you and walk all over you and it was clear they were constantly trying to make you look bad the entire time. It was like they were going out of their way to do it too and it was horrible.” For me this was a revelation. It wasn’t easy for Rebekah to tell me the truth the way she had. Up until then, she didn’t know anything was wrong in my family, or back home. She helped me see that I wasn’t crazy and that the way they were treating me wasn’t just in my head. It let me know if you become suspicious about how you’re being treated. Don’t be afraid of going to a trusted person and asking them for help, or advice. 
It’s just not parents or a parent who can gaslight someone, I’ve seen people do it their boyfriend, girlfriend and spouses. So you have to be ever vigilant.

People who gaslight typically use the following techniques:

  1. They tell blatant lies.

You know it’s an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they’re setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you’re not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.

  1. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.

  1. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you’d be a worthy person if only you didn’t have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being. For me, my mother would often attack my identity. She had a problem with everything about me. How I stood, how I walked, my hair, she would tell me horrible things about my father, tell me my friends weren’t really my friends and that they were all using me, or making fun of me behind my back. She would even tell me horrible things about my grandmother, who was more of a mother to me then her, or anyone else I’ve ever known.

  1. They wear you down over time.

This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often…and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It’s the “frog in the frying pan” analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what’s happening to it.

  1. Their actions do not match their words.

When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.

  1. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.

This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don’t have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, “Well maybe they aren’t so bad.” Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.

  1. They know confusion weakens people.

 

Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans’ natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.

 

  1. They project.

They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter’s own behavior.

 

  1. They try to align people against you.

Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, “This person knows that you’re not right,” or “This person knows you’re useless too.” Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don’t know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that’s exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.

  1. They tell you or others that you are crazy.

This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it’s dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It’s a master technique.

  1. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

By telling you that everyone else (your family, the media) is a liar, it again makes you question your reality. You’ve never known someone with the audacity to do this, so they must be telling the truth, right? No. It’s a manipulation technique. It makes people turn to the gaslighter for the “correct” information—which isn’t correct information at all.

 

The more you are aware of these techniques, the quicker you can identify them and avoid falling into the gaslighter’s trap.  So be careful out there.

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The Broken Road of Recovery.

Filed under: Life — 2 Comments
June 7, 2018

After I wrote “I’m not okay,” I got messages and comments from many of you who are fighting the same battles. So for anyone’s who’s struggling, I want to tell you once more that you’re not alone and I’m here for you all. I try my best to reply to every private message, or comment, I’m here for you.

My hope here is that by chronically my journey with Complex-post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the healing process I’m beginning to walk down, I can keep myself from falling into any of the old pitfalls of the past. Such as my innate desire to look for a savior, it was something I was doing without ever realizing it. But what’s my therapist brought it up, I knew she was right. I remember that it started at a very young age, where I started fantasying about meeting someone, falling in love and for that love to fix that brokenness within me. I often imagined, falling in love and having someone fall in love with me, would make all the pain and suffering worth it, that once I attained happiness, everything would suddenly make sense. I often imagined what it would be like to start my own family without the pain or the burdens of the past. This is something I carried with me into every romantic relationship and I would devote myself completely to that girl. Being with that girl often made me happy and that relationship would often heal me to the point where I wouldn’t think about suicide anymore, my outlook would become happier, more positive. However, once that relationship failed for whatever reason, I would be completely devastated. Even though I always made an effort to mature about the breakup and just walk away. Because I never saw the point of being ugly, or nasty to someone you loved and cared about. Because in my mind, being petty, or mean only serves to make the other person believe they might decision. Although, I get it when people do lash out, it sucks being hurt, let down and feeling like you failed. It’s always an emotional time when you’re in love with someone and they tell you they don’t love you anymore, or maybe they never did. So I get it, I understand people sometimes say things they do, because they’re hurting, they’re scared, they’re confused. So shit happens, I don’t know why most of my relationships didn’t work, I know sometimes it was me and sometimes it wasn’t, sometimes I think we just meet the right person, but the timing is off, or the other person, or I need time to grow and mature. Sometimes the other person just gets scared, become afraid of getting hurt and doubt that they’re even good enough.

Regardless though of the reasons why a relationship fails, I would always take it hard, I would fall apart. I would find myself reliving all my past traumas, all the time my mother hit me, every time she would call me weak, stupid, pathetic, I would relive all my greatest failures and disappointments. I couldn’t stop it, the memories of the past would often slam into me, over and over again like waves and I stranded out in a deep and endless sea, feeling like I was unable to even breathe. Often times, I wouldn’t be able to escape and I would be pulled down into the suffocating darkness, where a part of me liked the hurt and pain, because it was familiar to me and I felt like I didn’t deserve happiness. I would become distant, pushing people away and I would want to die. Something that has gotten only harder the older I get. I couldn’t control it, I couldn’t stop the pain, or the flashbacks, it all just kept coming, over and over again like a bad movie stuck on repeat.

 

 

So I’m learning to cope and to heal. I now find myself putting my guard up whenever a girl expresses romantic interests in me and makes it known she wants to heal me. It’s hard telling someone in that situation, “No, you can’t be my hero, I have to learn to heal myself and be my own hero, I need to grow and can’t rely on you, or anyone else to be my hero. I’m sorry, I know you mean well, but you can’t save me. But you can help me save myself, you can help me by being there, encouraging me, being patient with me and listening to me when I talk, when I want to talk. But you can’t force me to talk or open up if I’m not ready, or if I don’t feel like it.”

I think I speak everyone with a mental illness and a traumatic past, it really sucks when someone doesn’t really know what you’ve been through and want to compare your life to theirs, as a means of telling you to stop dwelling in the past, to get over it. Because we all deal with tragedies differently, if you been abused or broken and came out of it with no scars, no psychological damage, you’re the minority and you have a strength I truly admire, or you’re not being honest with yourself. I hid my pain for the longest time, I often hid behind a smile while I was dying inside. Granted growing up a part of my logic was, if I pretend I’m happy, I won’t bring anyone down with my unhappiness and no one will feel compelled to stop me if I decide to kill myself. Because no one would suspect I would do something like that. I was hurting and if I was going to take my own life, I didn’t want anyone to stop me. So I learned to lie and put up a false front, telling everyone I was okay, that I was doing alright and how happy I was to be me, how happy I was being alive. It was the mask I wore every day and very few people ever saw through my façade. The first was one of my good friends, her name’s Dawn and one day she was bragging about how easily she could read people. So I asked her to read me and she said, “You always act like you’re happy, but you’re very clearly hurting and you seem afraid to talk about it. But I’m here for you if you ever need someone who’ll listen and I’ll do my best to help if I can.”
I never did take Dawn up on that offer, but it did stun me to know that someone saw through my carefully crafted façade and how I thought I had everyone fooled into thinking that I was okay. But I was wrong. It didn’t take long for my friends to figure out something was wrong, for they became my second family. They always made time for me, invited me out to their family gatherings and outings. They always went out of their way to make me feel accepted, to encourage me and they were always the first ones to be there when I needed them.

It was through my friends that I realized that how my mother and her family were treating me wasn’t normal. You see, my mom would often tell me that because she catered to my picky appetite that she loved me. Or convince me that what she was doing and how she was treating me was for my own good. Whenever I would question her behavior, she would say “Josh I often make a separate meal just for you because you’re so picky, that’s how you know I love you!” But then I would get hit for eating with my mouth full, back handed if my elbows touched the table, or if I slurped instead of sip my beverage. Or the many times she made fun of me, mocked me, or laughed as my older brother made fun of me. Not counting the numerous times she had beaten me without mercy and because my brother denied having done something wrong, which would always make me guilty by default.

 

With my mother it never mattered if I was innocent or not, she would beat me until I confessed. 8 out of 10 times I would be telling the truth, or even know for a fact my older brother had done the very thing I was being accused of. In her mind, everyone else was totally incapable of lying, everyone except for me. Then after every confession she beat out of me, she would use that confession as more of a reason not to believe me. Sometimes, I often tried to hold out, taking the beating she was laying on me, doing my best to push through the pain, in hopes she would see reason and that I was telling the truth. But she never did stop, not until I confessed to whatever it was she wanted me to admit I had done. She never believed me, because she didn’t want to. For her, it was easier to show me cruelty then love. For her it was more fun to break me and broke me she did. It eventually got to the point where if something happened, I would admit it was me rather I did it or not. I didn’t see the point in fighting when I knew what was coming. Sometimes she would attack me, or put me down, sometimes she would walk away saying how it wasn’t even fun anymore if I wasn’t resisting.

 

Growing up the way I had, afraid to cross paths with my mother, the bullies who often harassed me in school, I soon began enjoying the night, which is why I think I struggle so bad with insomnia now. Because the nighttime often became my time. No one bothered me, harassed me, I didn’t have to hide or avoid anyone, because everyone was already asleep. At night I felt free and relaxed, because the world becomes quiet at 1 am. A part of me also feared the next day, so I would stay up as late as possible, to delay the coming day. But I then enjoyed sleep, because I’ve always dreamed vividly and in color, my dreams were often my escape. Because I would often dream about living a better life, where I was a hero, or I was loved, or a famous explorer, adventurer. In my dreams, I was often at my happiest.

 

To this day, I still feel more comfortable at night when everyone else is fast asleep and everything is quiet and peaceful. I’ve also come to find that people are their most real when you stay up late into the morning just talking about anything, everything or just nothing. Strangely enough I found myself reliving this a bit with my Friday night D&D game I have with my friends, where many of us just relax afterwards, just talking. Its night like those and ones like it that I find myself truly healing. In a strange way the friends I play dungeons and dragons with, are feeling more and more like family to me.

Speaking of family. I know many of my dad’s family often get upset with me, because of how little I come around and visit. I’ve been working on trying to work up the courage to tell the truth. You see I used to try and see them all the time, even took off work early so I could meet up with them for dinner every Thursday. But my dad’s family has a bad habit of wanting to tease someone in the group, usually I’m the target. Then they all like take their turns at making jokes at my expense, or just screwing or messing with me. Which I can usually handle, but they don’t know when to quit, or what lines to cross, or which ones not to. Whenever I had mentioned I didn’t appreciate it, they would often laugh and tell me how they were all just teasing, before continuing again. Sometimes they’ve pointed out that my friends often tease me too. In which I have to say they’re right, but my close friends actually really know me. They figured out I was broken and damaged before anyone else did, before I even knew what was really wrong with me. My friends had been there for me, even when it was hard, when I pushed them away, even when I tried making them hate me. They never turned their backs on me, they never gave up on me, they supported me, encouraged me, they were there. No one had to spell it out for them, no one had to tell them, “Josh is suffering from depression.” They listened to me when I needed to talk, they didn’t judge me, or tell me bad things happen and I should get over it. They accepted me, got together and came over to my house just to drag me out of my funk, or just to check up on me. They showed me love, they became my family. When we tease each other, we all know what lines to cross and which ones to avoid, we also know when to stop. When they any of us goes too far, we apologize and begin making fun of ourselves to take attention away from whoever is beginning to feel hurt or attacked.

I have c-ptsd, so sometimes if I’m sitting there with everyone around me teasing, mocking, or making fun of me, I feel like I’m six, eight, twelve years old all over again and I’m reliving everything I had ever endured, reliving every insult, every time my mother or someone told me I wasn’t good enough, every time I was called weak, pathetic and that no one would ever love me. I relive the moment when my mother told me I should just kill myself, because no one would ever love me, because I was just a joke and a burden to everyone around me.

Those words haunt me, as much as most of my past. I remember it all, I relive it all the time. Every day is a battle for me and every day it’s the hardest battle of my life. Because every day, I have to give myself reasons to go home, to get up in the morning and to not go out and kill myself. I’m struggling all the time, wrestling with these demons that haunt me. The battles I and those like me fight are hard and they’re never ending. It helps whenever someone tells me they love me, that they care, or appreciate me. Those things help and they cost nothing to give, a few words of encouragement, or show of friendship really does go long a way. Because I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t always like to talk about what’s bothering me. I don’t always show it on my face, or in my mannerisms, I often pretend I’m okay and everything is alright, because I don’t want anyone to worry, I don’t want to be a burden and I don’t any false sympathy.  So I keep moving forward, placing one foot in front of the other, trying to be better myself and not be the person I was yesterday, or the day before. I throw myself into writing, playing dungeons and dragons, reading, cosplaying, video games, working out and forcing myself to talk to people and practice opening up to those around me. But it’s not easy, I still get bad, I still have my bad days and there are nights where I can’t sleep and all I can do is think, tormented by my own thoughts and memories. But like all of you, I know I’m not alone.

 

 

 

 

 

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Scars of Who We Are Chapter XIII

Filed under: Life — Leave a comment
October 10, 2013

Chapter 13

“We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer’s job is to turn the unspeakable into words – not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues.”

― Anne Lamott

A month after my suicide, I was a patchwork of emotions, still living at home with my mother, although I’m unsure why I didn’t just get up and flee, but I was struggling to pull and hold myself together, sensing that something foreboding was waiting for me somewhere off on the horizon and that every day it was looming ever closer. I was afraid, but I knew that whatever storm was heading my way, I would stand before and weather the storm and I would stand before my biggest fear and let it pass through me. Knowing if I survived, it would make me stronger and I would be better, maybe even a little bit wiser.

The Grant County Fair

The Grant County Fair

I was steadily settling into working  nights at the Burger King at the end of my street and like most first jobs I hated it. But it wasn’t the grease burns, or the nightly rush that bothered me, it was the getting home every morning around two or three a.m and having to wash with lava soap to get the smell of burgers, fries  and grease off of me. I also hated it for all the things it took from me, I couldn’t see my dad because I was often working and I was seeing my friends less and less. The situation was made worse by my mother who would come and bang on my door every morning at ten in the morning and sometimes she would wake me up even earlier, screaming at me for sleeping the day away, oblivious to the fact I had just gotten home, showered and went to bed a few hours prior, which was quickly wearing me down and making me feel as though I was slowly turning into a zombie, just going through the motions. Every day I would wake up tired, shower again, eat a little breakfast and watch my little brothers before going in to work at seven.  I was nineteen and already felt myself falling into a boring and lonely routine. Wondering if God really brought me back from the brink of death for this of all things.

As if sensing my growing frustrations, or noticing my slow decline into depression, my two best friends started visiting me at my work, often waiting hours after we’ve closed just to give me a ride home, since I didn’t have a car.

(Well I did technically get a car from my grandpa for my last birthday, but unbeknownst to me my mother gifted it to my older brother, until he was done with it and got a new car himself, allowing her to sell the car that was meant for me.)

Matt and his lovely family

Matt and his lovely wife

Matt and Steven were like the brothers I never had, they enjoyed having me around and often went out of their way to make me feel accepted and cared for. Often encouraging me in my passions and my writing. They also made me feel loved.  (which I so desperately needed, I didn’t know it then, but looking back now, I know I was looking to fill those holes my family had left within my heart. So they became my family, filling in those holes I so desperately wanted and needed to be filled. Because family to me is what you say it is and you what make it, family doesn’t have to be defined by blood relations or by marriage alone. It’s the connections you make and the bonds you share.)

Then one night after they picked me up from another late night at work, we went to Matt’s and sat around his pool discussing our school year and  the summer that we all knew was drawing to a close and soon we would all be going our separate ways, with him going off to the marine core, Steven pursuing a career in special effects and me the writer, dreaming of a better life for myself. We discussed the possibility of this moment being the one moment in time that would never again come around, that this was it, the days of our youth were winding down and would soon be forever behind us. So it was with that thought, we realized we had to make this summer count for something and we agreed to make it a summer we’ll always remember, our one last hurrah.

We planned to attend the Grant County Fair, and because we lived in a closed minded, back water little town, populated mostly by hillbillies and country bumpkins, we decided to go in goth, to stand out, daring to be different, maybe even ourselves.

Also for me it’s always been easier to act more carefree when I wasn’t dressed as myself, so dressing up in goth felt kinda freeing in a way, by believing I could put on this other persona and be this person that I wasn’t. It gave me person to stop worrying about what others thought of me and what they said, it was liberating. I also learned that I look good in all black, for I actually had more girls flirting with me than I had in my entire life. So that was a nice added plus.

Steven

Steven

Once there Matt decided to have a little fun by staging a fake fight with another one of our other friends, John and being young and stupid we all thought it was a great idea, which almost resulted in us being booted out of the fair. But once everyone figured out it was all staged and we were just goofing around, everything was well and good, with the rest of the night being incredibly memorable, one that made me feel more alive than I thought possible and how we laughed  all night until we cried.   Although I must confess, the whole time I did keep an eye out for Sherry, hoping to see her somewhere in the sea of people there at the Grant County Fair.

It took three days for word of our shenanigans to get around to my mother and My step-father, Chris and believe me, they were not too pleased. I had been asleep for a whole five and a half hours when they came banging on my door, demanding I get up.  I rose, bleary eye and sleep deprived from working even later than usual and opened the door wondering what they wanted to harass me about now and was immediately shoved inside as they forced their way into my room, with the accusations already flying.

Immediately they began questioning me about the fair and I answered as honestly as I could and believing them both to be overreacting and that if they just heard my side of the story, that it would all blow over. (But I obviously forgotten who I was dealing with.)  But I did my best to explain the situation for what it was, our one last hurrah before we risked never seeing each other again. But they weren’t having it, instead I found myself being accused of being in a suicidal cult and how I was tarnishing Chris’s good name as a police officer and for the first time in my life I found the conviction to finally stand up for myself and cry, “Bullshit!” and reminded them how I always stayed out of trouble, and how I never once broke the law, or drank, did any drugs, nor did I ever cause any problems at school.

But my mother wouldn’t listen, instead she stepped to me and began jabbing me in the chest with her finger, ordering me I was to call Matt, Steven and the others and tell them how I could no longer be friends with them. An act I couldn’t find more humiliating, or degrading, especially from all the times they’ve been there for me and so I stood my ground and defiantly told her no.

She hadn’t expected my answer and looked surprised, which quickly gave way to anger and she began screaming at me, telling me how I was going to do it, or she was going to. But I found my courage and my voice and shook my head as I said,

“Look, my friends and I all graduated together,  and none of them have ever been in any kind of trouble, or been arrested, none of them smoke or do drugs, they’re good friends to have and they’ve been good to me and they’ve been there for me than you ever were. They’re my family and have been my family in all the ways you never were and I won’t write them off for you. “

“I don’t care,” She says, “You either call  your friends up right now and tell them you can’t be friends with them-“

“Mom,” I interrupt, “I’m nineteen, I’m not my brother and my friends aren’t his, mine are better.”

(Which was the truth, my brother’s friends have all been, or gone to prison…some still are and almost all of them have either been expelled or dropped out of high-school and more than one had knocked a girl up, or was hooked on drugs, or an alcoholic. Unlike my friends who worked hard, kept their noses clean and help motivate and even tutor me on their own when I was falling behind them in my classes. All the things she’s always known.

“Call them, or we’re kicking you out!” She threatened and I smiled. Because I realized her threats didn’t bother me anymore and I wasn’t afraid. I was free and my eyes were finally opening to all the lies she’s ever told me. This was what my father kept trying to warn me would eventually happen. My mother was going to kick me out because she had no further need of me, no child support and I was no longer a prisoner for her to bully and threaten, I was free to choose and I chose to go.

“Alright…I’m gone.” I rasp and picking up my phone as she asks me where I’m going to go and so I tell her, “I think I’ll go live with my dad for a little while.”

She watches me make the call with venom and revulsion as I dialed my dad’s number and when he answered I told him, that I  needed a place to stay and that I was being kicked out.  He understood and told me he’d be right on his way and we both hung up.

As soon as I got off the phone with my father, my mother started going off on me, rattling off everything that was wrong with me, calling me a little hoodlum, a liar, and how weak and pathetic I was. All the while, I kept trying to ignore her and begun packing up my things as she followed me around telling me that I was nothing but an ugly little coward and worse.

Of course I didn’t expect any less from her, after all this was the person I’ve grown up with, so I bit my tongue and quietly packed up my things and praying that she would just go and leave me alone, which she never did.

She insisted on saying that I was nothing but a little mischievous liar, always sneaking around and how my dad wouldn’t put up with my attitude or behavior, along with every little thing I did wrong since I was seven and how one day my father would end up beating me to death, or forcing me into the military life to make a man out of me, which was when I finally snapped.

“Enough!” I barked, “Just stop it okay, seriously when does it does it end? You won alright? I’m moving out, you can stop blaming me and holding me accountable for things I did when I was seven. I’m sorry I ruined your life so much by being born. But believe it or not and despite whatever you may think, I was a good kid and I don’t know maybe I’ve just been a little misunderstood, but I’m not the same person I was when I was a kid and I admit,  I used to steak candy from people’s candy jars, I snuck around people’s houses and explored,  I looked in cupboards, searched every room, explored every closet, but  I was seven! That’s what kids do, I never stole or took from anyone and I was a kid. I’m sorry I couldn’t always act like and be the adult you wanted me to be, I’m sorry for all the times I didn’t behave, or be the perfect kid, I’m sorry for the lies I used to tell just so that you wouldn’t beat me with the paddle. But that’s what kids too, we’re afraid of getting punished and you made us afraid of the paddle, but I was eight and you still act like it was yesterday. You haven’t noticed that in the past ten years I’ve changed and grew to admit to the things I did wrong and would only deny the things I hadn’t, until you either beat, or blackmailed a false confession out of me, that you would then use to further incriminate me for other things I hadn’t done, forever condemning as a liar, no matter what I ever said or did to prove otherwise.

“Josh you’ve always been a liar and vindictive, trying to get back at me cause you think you’ve been done wrong!” She snapped back.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, “And why would you think, that I would think or do that? For what reason would you think I would want to get back at you  for something you did if you’ve always been the perfect mother? Or do you admit that you’ve always been horrible to me and are afraid to death it’s going to come back to bite you? But you got me all wrong, despite everything you’ve ever done and said to me, I always loved you and prayed for a real mother and son relationship with you, but you took all that away, you made me afraid of you and I never once stood up to you, so whatever it is you think about me is twisted and I seriously think that you’re sick.”

“Josh I can’t believe you would say that,” she shot back.

Shrugging, I shake my head,

“Do you ever stop to wonder about why it is you think I’m such a horrible person? My whole life all you ever done was blame me for everything, no matter what and without fail. Never believing anyone else would lie to you, but me. Even after Dominic (My brother) got arrested for stealing a vending machine from the Wendy’s break room, I was there when he swore up and down he had nothing to do with it, swearing to God, that he was innocent, but when they showed the security footage of him actually stealing it, I’m still somehow always the big liar. It’s always been lose, lose with me, I would plead my innocents and you  wouldn’t stop beating me until I confessed and you would always hold that confession against me, telling me it’s why you couldn’t ever believe me in the future. Do you recall how many times and how long it would take of you beating the hell out of me before you got your confessions? Did you ever once stop to think that I would have comped to anything if it meant  the beating and the groundings, would stop, or just so that I could have dinner?”

“Josh, you’re just trying to be the victim,” She snorted,

“Because that’s what you made me!” I retorted. “No matter what I did or what happened you would judge me as being guilty before even speaking to me and automatically assumed the worse about me when I gave you no grounds to do so.  I’ve always been a good kid, stayed out of trouble, always doing what I was told. Even my friend’s parents believe I’m as straight laced as they come, too afraid of ever doing anything even remotely bad or wrong. But you see only what you want to see in me and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the threats, the accusations and being treated like a second class citizen, so I’m done, you got your wish, and I’m no longer your son.”

Then I shook my head grabbed my bags and shoved my way past her, to wait out in the driveway for my father to pick me up. My heart was still racing, I never spoken to my mother like that before, heck until then I barely even stood up for myself…like ever. It felt good, if not a little scary and hurtful, because I finally admitted what I never had to courage to really face. Which was there was nothing I could do, nothing I could ever say, my mother hated me and would always see me as some stupid delinquent that she could bully and manipulate. Although a part of me was already looking back, thinking about my little brothers and how much I would miss them, imagining there reaction when they discovered that I had gone and how they would ask about me, dreading whatever lies my mother would feed them. But this was something I had to do, I had to cut ties with my mother no matter how much it hurt, otherwise I risked drowning.

But little did I know, my mother wasn’t done, not yet, not by a long shot, dealing me a blow that I never expected or saw coming….

Me, Matt, Dawn and Steven.

Me, Matt, Dawn and Steven.

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Scars of Who We Are Chapter XI

Filed under: Life — 1 Comment
August 15, 2013

Chapter 11

~The truth is every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, and some not. Some things change, while some never do and life goes on and on. And it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and my life in particular is a testament to that little fact. Yes the world can be a very mean and nasty place and no matter how strong or tough you think you are, it will beat you down to your knees and keep you there if you let it. No one will ever hit you as hard as life can and will, but its not about how hard you get hit, or how many times life knocks you down, it’s about how many times you keep getting back up, keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving and pressing ever forward on this journey called life, yeah my head may be bloody, but its unbowed and you can either press on to something more, or call it quits and simply give up, never knowing how close you came to getting past those hurdles, to finding solace in a moment, when find peace while walking barefoot through the grass with a pretty girl.
The battles you fight will be hard, but the reward will be all the sweeter once your journey finally winds down and you look back at a life well lived, because you didn’t give up. Yes you may lose your heart’s desire along the way, but you can also find it and there is no greater joy in life than that, yes accidents happen, sometimes you may lose your way, which can be tragic, but only if you let it, or you can embark on an all new journey of discovery until you find your way back home, to the place you’re meant to be. You just can’t ever let it keep you down, because this world is filled with its crazy mazes, obscene obstacles, and flashing lights all meant to test us, strengthen us and sometimes even distract us from what’s important…and I…I just want to write, to change the world with my words and get people to read again, to discover the magic in the written word, that magic that has been buried in the hidden depths of your soul. Remember your life is a story, and some chapters end, while others are just beginning, so if you ever think of ending your story prematurely, you’re robbing yourself and of those around you of the story of you and you’ll never see how things were truly meant to be, even the saddest of stories can have a happy ending. Plus, the beginning of most stories are often the hardest, but if you hang in there, you’ll soon discover you weathered the storm and have become a little stronger, a little wiser and just better for having lived through it. Don’ think of yourself as a victim, but a survivor, because that’s what you are, you’re stronger and better than you know.

stars

After the debacle of my sixteenth, birthday party, I kind of became two people. At home I would withdraw into myself, spending most of time hiding out alone in my room, transfixed by some video game, engrossed in a television program, or lost in a book. Gradually I was becoming a hermit whenever I was home. I hated socializing with the rest of my mom’s family because now everything they said to me just felt false, every compliment was a lie. often I found myself entertaining thoughts of suicide, hearing that little voice in the back of my head confirming all my worst fears, telling me my friends weren’t really my friends, that everyone was really just laughing at me behind my back, that I was a joke, a burden on everyone I loved and cared for. These words always spoke to me in the voice of my mother, telling me I had no future, I was stupid and ugly, along with all the horrible things we sometimes tell ourselves. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about killing myself, or how close I came. I grew up a Christian and still am, so my beliefs and my relationship with my father, my step-brother, my grandmother were all that kept me strong despite everything else that was going wrong in my life.

            The other person I found myself becoming was in thanks to my friends, who pulled me from the edge and held me there. To this day I still don’t know what it was they saw in me, I was an overly shy, backwards, introverted dork. But they saved me from myself and accepted me for who i was, they started a  change me. Slowly and gradually, I noticed how being around them made me better, more confident and not so afraid to have a little fun every now and again. Because I was as straight-laced as they came. I never smoked, drank, did any drugs, never did anything really, so much so  that most of my friend’s parents wanted to adopt me. In the end, I think that’s why I really chose to stay with my mother during all that time, with a little of it being afraid of what she would do if I left to live with my father.

           A week after my sixteenth birthday, when I was sitting alone in my room vegging out  in front of my t.v when I hear my mother yelling for me. My mom’s sister, Terry was there whose presence I simply endured and hadn’t been much of a fan of, (It was no illusion that she liked my older brother better than me, often treating me like a second class citizen), but still I tolerated her and she was standing in the living room, with my mom standing at the edge of the kitchen, upon seeing me, she asks me to take out the trash.

 (Now this part is the hardest for me talk about, let alone write, so I’m probably not going to edit any of it, just going to try and get through it as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, typos be damned.)

 I walked past my mother, opening the cabinet which held our trashcan, which was overflowing, and started liberating the bag from the can, when behind me my mom asks me to check on our cat’s litter-box, responded by saying, 

Me at 16

Me at 16

   “Alright, as soon as I finish with this,” and I stand up and begin to carry the bag out of the kitchen when I’m shoved into our fridge which sat next to the entryway of our kitchen. At first I cracked a bit of a smile, believing my mother was just goofing off with me, or was trying to be cute or something, so I laugh and roll my eyes and pick myself back up and begin to step away, when my mother grabs my head and slams the side of my head into the fridge.

 

I whirled my head around in confusion, no longer thinking this was some harmless fun and wondering what I did wrong, but before I can ask she throws me up against the fridge, then hits me. My face stinging from the blow, I can already feel the red hand print throbbing, with my cheek feeling like it was on fire, I open my mouth to protest, when she shoves me again, followed by a second blow to the other side of my face. 

Then I do something I had never done before, I shove off of me, which also proves to be a mistake. She leaps at me again, her hands going to my face and she slams the back of my skull against the side of our fridge, before hitting me across the face again, harder this time. I manage a brief glance over at my aunt, expecting that she would have enough sense to stop whatever this was and I watch her smile and and give me an exaggerated shrug and my blood begins to boil. I barely have time to register her apathy, I feel my mother’s nails digging into my neck as she grabs the collar of my shirt, pulling me towards her, before shoving me back against the fridge once more. 


Pain lances up through my shoulder blades, with a part of me believing that this was it, she was going to murder me, because I can feel is her jumping on me, reigning blow after blow on me, hitting me everywhere and anywhere as I tried to shrink back into the fridge, raising my arms to protect my face, all the while still holding the bag containing the kitchen’s garbage. 

Finally having enough I snap, shoving her off of me as hard as I can and into the counter at her back. I’m screaming “Stop,” at the top of my lungs, maybe a part of me was hoping a neighbor or someone would hear and call the cops. But I was so angry, I could barely think clearly, with my whole body trembling with rage, wanting nothing more than to finally hit her back and not stop until I could no longer raise my fists.

My heart was racing and feeling as though it would beat right out of my chest. Then she hits me again and I slam her harder into the counter and throw the bag of trash at her and scream,

“That’s it, I had enough, I’m packing my bags tonight and moving in with my dad, I don’t care what you do to me, I’m done!”

With my heart still beating like a jackhammer, I storm out of the kitchen, pausing momentarily to glower at my aunt, who’s still just standing there.

       “Are you really going to do nothing and let her beat the hell out of me?” I ask, and she responds by turning her back to me.
Shaking my head in disbelief, I turn and storm down the hall to my room, already thinking of how I was going to explain this to my friends, hoping that I’d still be able to see them from to time and wondering how difficult it’d be to make new friends in a new school, to be the new kid all over again. Realizing I hated my mother then, I hated her for doing this to me, for forcing me to leave behind my friends. 


         I make it to my room where I try slamming the door behind me, (because when you’re angry slamming things usually feel pretty good,) But my mother catches the door just before it slams shut and throws it open, and shoves me from behind. I stumble, catch my balance, but by the time I recover, she’s on top of me again, beating me, clawing at my face and neck, pulling and tearing at my shirt, going absolutely berserk. I’m terrified, believing this was where I’m going to die.But my anger fuels me, drives me and I let her hit me three or four more times before I explode, shoving her out of my room and pin her arms at her side, bringing my face inches from hers as I scream. No words, I just scream, feeling every part of my body wanted to hit her repeatedly, I wanted to show her how to hurt and teach her how to bleed. I wanted her to know, to feel every blow, ever pain and every hurt she ever made me feel. In that moment I wanted to kill her. But I manage to reign in my anger just enough to shout, 

  

            “Stop! Just stop and leave me alone! I’m done with this, I’m done with you! It’s over.”

            Shaking I let her go and turn to head back to my room  and begin packing my beds, when she shoves me from behind and again I stumble, recover and turn to face her as she shoves me again harder. I stagger back, plant my feet and shove in return, in what erupts into a brief shoving match between us. Realizing she’s losing ground, she launches herself at me and begins wailing away on me, hitting me, scratching me in what felt like an endless barrage of blows to every exposed square inch of my body, while the whole time I’m seeing red and all I can think about is breaking her neck.  That’s when I see it, I see her pulling her hand back in a fist and I clench my fist in return, making the conscious decision I was done letting her hit me, I bring my arm up to block the blow when she smiles.

            The blow never comes; instead she’s smiling ear to ear and begins taunting me, presenting her face to me saying,

            “Oh you going to hit me, come on, hit me,”

            “I don’t want to hit you; but I want you to stop hitting me!” I snap, but she doesn’t stop, nor do I think she hears a single word I said, because she’s shoving me now with her palms, presenting her chin to me, saying,
“No, I saw you, you want to hit me, so c’mon and hit me,”

Shaking my head with my heart still racing, I slowly back away wondering if this is what she wanted all along and I try rationalizing with her, telling her how I wasn’t going to hit her, albeit I wanted to, but I wasn’t about to let her beat me to death, I was done being the victim.


But she won’t have it; instead she shoves me again and I almost fall against my bed as she saying,

            “No I want you to hit me, it’s what I’ve always wanted you to do, so come on hit me, It’s what I want you to do, c’mon hit me,” She taunts, presenting her face to me and outstretching her arms, to give me a free open shot at her. When I refuse, she continues,
“Oh, come on, I want you to hit me, it’s what I’ve always wanted you to do, what I’ve always been wanting you to do.”

            Those words hit me harder than any blow I ever received from her and panic begins setting in as I start to realize what all this is.

            “Hit me!” She screams over and over again, “C’mon hit me,” She demands, “Hit me so I can have your step dad (who’s a cop) Come home and haul your ass to juvie, and your uncle Skip (who’s rich)  knows judges so I can make sure you never see the light of day, your dad, or anyone you love ever again, I’ll make sure you stay locked away in the system from juvie to prison, it’s where I want you to spend the rest of your life, what I’ve always wanted you to do.”  She professes, sounding like she’s already won and had beaten me. She smiles and shoves me once more for good measure, then smacks me again, hoping I’ll snap and  hit her back. But I don’t. I’m too much in shock.

            The horror of what she was saying kept me rooted and I saw my whole life flash before my eyes, remembered every beating, every nasty thing she’s done, or said to me, knowing then in that moment she wanted to ruin my life. My mother, the woman who brought me into this world, had gotten off on the idea of making my life miserable.

Me as a newborn.I look at this photograph sometimes wondering...

Me as a newborn.I look at this photograph sometimes wondering…

 I know people sometimes say things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment, but the way she looked at me and how she recanted her plan to ruin my life, I couldn’t and still can’t help but think she had given this some real thought. But now I refused to play into her little game, I stood my ground and an idea came to me, to turn this whole ordeal against her, to let the whole world see her for the monster she was.

            “You know what?” I asked breathlessly, shaking my head as I started for my phone, “I think I’ll go ahead and call the police myself and let them see the marks you left on me, then I’ll testify against you and we’ll see where all your connections get you when all this is done.”        

            My mother didn’t move, she was stunned and I could feel her eyes following me as I moved to my phone and my hands were still trembling as I began to dial 911.

            By the time I picked up the phone, she started crying, which had always been my Achilles Heel. (I never could stand seeing a girl cry, let alone my own mother) and I could feel myself beginning to lose my resolve and my the time I dialed 9, she was began begging me to stop, asking me, pleading me to think of my Brothers and how it’ll affect them and I told her how I didn’t care, not anymore. So I pressed 1 and she sobbed harder, begging me to stop, asking for my forgiveness, telling me how sorry she was, how much she loved me, how she didn’t mean any of the things she said.

            I fell for it…..

Dropping the phone I turned to her, she was practically on the floor sobbing defeated and was still pleading for me to stop and not do this to her, so I say,


           “Fine, but if you ever and I mean ever touch me again, I won’t hesitate to make this call and there’s nothing you can do, or ever say that’ll stop me.”

            She crawled back to her feet then, all tears and apologies, wrapping her arms around me, telling me how good I was and how much she loved me and all I could say to her was,
“Never again.”

      My mom and her sister then blamed all this on me, because they claimed I said something, or smarted off after I was asked to clean the litter-box, however neither one could tell me what it was they thought I said. But after that day, I stopped trusting my mother and began spending more and more time with my friends, too afraid to go home…. But I’m still here, I survived and if I can make through all that, there’s no limit to what you can do. 

Me and my grandma, the woman was more of a mother to me then she'll ever know. I miss her dearly.

Me and my grandma, the woman was more of a mother to me then she’ll ever know. I miss her dearly.

 

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Scars of Who We Are: Chapter X

Filed under: Life — Leave a comment
August 1, 2013

Scars of who were are, memories chapter 10.

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My little cousin, me, Dominic my older brother and his now ex-girlfriend, five years ago.

~These memories of who I was and where I’ve been are important to me. Just as your memories should be to you, even when they’re painful, or mired in regret, they still make up a large part of who we are, who I am, and the person I’m going to be once my journey finally winds down. I need to remember the essence of magic and hope that I once knew and held so dear, if I’m ever to capture it again. Because life isn’t a journey, for every journey ends and when it ends, we go on. There are no do-overs and second chances come as rare as a flower blooming in the dead of winter, but we learn and carry on. Sometimes we’re heavier from the burdens we take on and carry with us; sometimes we become lighter by sharing our burdens with those closest to us. The world turns and turns and we with it, plans fall apart, things change, scars fade, but the memory, the memories always remain and sometimes there’s a moment in our lives that hovers and settles for but a moment, leaving us forever and inexplicably changed in the most unexpected of ways, ways we never thought or felt before. And it’s then that our dreams take over and it’s there I see you and it seems that wherever I go, I find you, you’re there, my luck, my fate, my fortune, my life, my blessing and my curse. But it’s not all about you, or where in the stars your destiny lies, it’s about the here and now and what you find in the hidden depths of your soul, it’s where we go from here, as the ashes of what was and what might have been finally settle down around us, leaving us forever transformed, this is it, this is the now and it’s when you finally decide where you’re going to go from here.

      Patrick and I became inseparable, we were best friends and brothers all the same.  His eyes were also open, he wasn’t afraid to speak up and stand up to his mother for me. It was something about him I always admired, he never cared that

My step-brother and me at King's Island....Sorry Patrick this is the only picture I could find of you.

My step-brother and me at King’s Island….Sorry Patrick this is the only picture I could find of you.

by jumping to my defense whenever she was jumping on my case, making fun, or bullying me and how it would get often get him grounded, or chewed out, he was someone who always stood up for what was right, no matter what it had cost him.  Eventually Patrick would be the one to go to my dad about how I was being treated and I would begrudgingly confirm that Patrick was telling the truth. Often I had held my tongue Because I didn’t want to cause any ripples in my father’s new marriage. He loved her and she made him happy and I couldn’t bear to bear to be the the reason why he couldn’t hold onto this family he had found. He loved her kids and still does as if they were his own and maybe I was a little selfish myself, because I also didn’t want to jeopardize my relationship with my brother, I didn’t want to lose to him, or any of my extended family. So I was willing to go through that mental abuse and more if it meant my father’s happiness and the continued bond that forms between brothers. Sadly, I would eventually see this marriage fall apart and once more I got to relive all the ugliest therein. With a part of me always wishing they would get back together and mend the fences, so that we could all once again be a family.   

My Step-mother.

My Step-mother.

To my step-mother’s credit, she did eventually find me on face-book years later. To be honest I didn’t know what to make of the friend request that found its way to my inbox, or the message she sent with. In it, she wrote me a very heartfelt apology for how she treated me. Telling me how sorry she was and asking if I could ever find it in my heart to forgive her. So I accepted her friend request, and wrote her back, telling her I had forgiven her a very long time ago, because truth was I saw why she resented me so much even back then, I knew why. Even though she had two kids from a previous marriage whom of which my father had accepted as his own, she couldn’t bring herself to accept me.  I was a constant reminder to her of father’s previous marriage and how committed. I would be the one thing that would always keep him tied to her

       But now I’m happy to report that her and I still stay in touch and I do still have love for her. I even told her as much the last we talked and that she was often more of a mother to me, than my real one, because Trisha did  occasionally put forth at least a little  effort in trying to get to know me and she did spend a little bit of time with me here and there. Yeah, it may have been mostly because she didn’t want to watch a particular scary movie alone, or  maybe she was just lonely when my father wasn’t there and just wanted a movie buddy. But those memories of her asking me to sit with her and watch a movie together are some of greatest memories I have and still carry with me to this day. Movies had become her and mine thing that we would share and do together, further illustrating how the magic of a story, in a cinema, a movie can capture the essence of magic and bring unlikely people together. I remember how she would make me popcorn and how we would talk about the movie later, about what we thought of the story and how it should have ended. And to be honest if we shared more of those moments, I would have elected left home and would have moved in with them, adopting a new family all my own. 

My step-sister and no I'm not ashamed to admit I did used to have a bit of a crush on her.

My step-sister and no I’m not ashamed to admit I did used to have a bit of a crush on her.

 

 

But at fourteen, I had fallen into the habit of spending most of my summers with my father and when I stayed with him, I never wanted to come home, partially because I know I would be left alone and because I was afraid of my mother, who had the habit of making me miserable, so naturally I loathed the idea of coming home. Home was a place that never felt really real and always left me feeling a bit out of place, like I really didn’t belong, even though my mother had went from physically beating me, to full scale psychological abuse which started a year prior. I had also grown to dislike my step father, but the blunt of that came earlier in the year when he nearly broke my arm because I complained of having a migraine and wanted to lay down. Then I was threatened into lying about how I had a bruise the size of a grown man’s hand around my bicep, a angry black and yellow band around my arm, that everyone had wondered how I got, but to each one I told a different story.

Then of course was my older brother who often tormented me by either having fun at my expense or by treating me like a second class citizen, who was his dork little brother. I hated him so much at times and my mother too, for she would laugh with him as he poked fun at me and my speech problems, then whenever I would get bad and try to say something hurtful in turn, I would be the one whipped and punished. I hated my life, I hated my home more, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to love it. I wanted to be happy in my home and I wanted to have the kind of life you read about, or see on t.v. I wanted to believe in the stars.

Me at fourteen

Me at fourteen

 

But this one summer, I came home to an unexpected surprise; I went to my room to unpack my things and to discover that my room had been redecorated. The bunk beds that once took up residence in my room were replaced by a very nice queen sized bed and my walls had been painted to my favorite color, which at the time was red. (Now it’s blue, things change) It was then my mom popped into my room and I was taken aback by how excited and happy she was to see me. Then I saw her brow crease with worry when she thought I didn’t like it, when truth was I was in shock, I was speechless. It took me a moment for my wits to return and for me tell her how much I loved it. But that was two years before I would learn the unspeakable truth that would forever weigh on my soul. But sometimes, I also wonder if she could love me on this day how come she couldn’t always, why did her love sometimes wash over me like a wave, to so quickly ebb and dissipate, why was it that the waves were so few and far between, leaving me stranded alone on this island, with no place to call my home.

 

At sixteen, I came home from a hard day at school to yet another surprise, this time to discover that  my mother had thrown me a surprised birthday party. To be honest, it had been something I mentioned from to time growing up, I’ve always wanted one, but as I grew older I began to believe less and less in it actually happening, so needless to say I was overjoyed.

For all of ten minutes I couldn’t stop smiling, believing this was one of the greatest days of my life and for ten minutes I had forgotten about all the hurt feelings, the nasty words and all the beatings. I opened the door to the smell of steaks frying on the grill out back, mac and cheese cooking on the stove, the smell of freshly baked cookies and chocolate fudge brownies, all my favorites.

I laughed, not knowing what to think, believing that the Lord had finally granted my one request, which was to have my mother love me as much as she did my bother. Because this was it, this was the turning point I had been waiting for and I was so tired of struggling and fighting just to stay afloat and now, now I was happy. I had the attention I had always wanted, the sense of belonging I had craved for so long and now it was finally mine, or so I thought.

 

Then the pictures started the first few were of me, then I posed with a few family members, than my brother Dominic and I was still feeling euphoric, until I heard my aunt Terry remark on how handsome my brother was and right in front of me, she began insisting that he should go into modeling because he was so unbelievably photogenic and handsome. To my brother’s credit, he was being modest and tried brushing the comments aside, but they kept coming. My grandma on my mother’s side jumped in, as well telling my brother how it was true and that girls were always inquiring about him because he was so  handsome, then of course my mother had her say, trying to convince him of all the good money that could be had if he went into modeling, while I stood there, completely forgotten.

For awhile I did my best to pretend not to be a little hurt, so I wore my false smile and eventually having enough, I threw am arm around my brother and saying,

                “Hey, how about we go into modeling together, you know as brothers?” My brother quickly brushed me off and laughed, while the rest of the room looked at me as if looks could kill and as I tried figuring out what it was that I said that got everyone looking so peeved at me,I feel my Aunt Terry’s hand closing around my arm as she pulls me aside saying,

“Hey, you’re not like your brother, he’s really handsome and you shouldn’t be acting all jealous because you’re not and he’s your brother.”

                  At sixteen, I didn’t know rather to laugh or to cry, I wanted to believe she was just joking around with me, even if it was a little mean. But before I could formulate any kind of response my grandmother (on my mother’s side) Pulls me around, telling me it’s okay to be average and I shouldn’t be acting this way just because he’s really special and and very handsome.

I couldn’t believe my ears, heck I couldn’t even believe this was really happening and I had thought this was suppose to my day, and all could feel was m heart sinking along with whatever positive self image I still possessed.

 

Then of course my mom chimed in, I don’t know why when she first interrupted my aunt and grandma that I allowed myself to believe she was jumping to my defense, instead she launched into telling me about everything that was wrong with me. How my nose was too big and that I needed plastic surgery to get it fixed, then piece by piece she tore me apart, telling me how my hair was too greasy and unkempt, that I was too weakly, scrawny, my clothes didn’t fit me right, I had poor posture, bad skin, I couldn’t stand or walk right, my teeth weren’t white enough, my gums weren’t pink enough, etc. By then end of it I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and die, but of course she didn’t stop there, she went as far as pointing out my speech problems, the grades I was making in school and so forth.

That day my favorite foods had lost their taste, I had lost my appetite, lost in my own depression, thinking how sorry they’ll all be once I’m gone, but I played my part, I smiled falsely, pretended that everything okay; even though I was dying inside and when I finally got to blow out my candles, I wished for a new life and I hoped for love to come into my life and make sense of all of this.

 

Later I would grow to suspect everything that happened was some veiled attempt to breed resentment between my brother and me, but it never took. Even when he was making my life miserable I still loved him, he was my brother and he always will be. brothers are suppose to be a pain, suppose to torment you and get on your nerves. Even my step-brother and me for as well as we did get along we often got on each others nerves, would tease one another and annoy the ever loving crap out of each other. So no, I never really blamed Dominic for anything that’s happened, because he was my brother.

                But, Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had spoken out and made myself heard, to admit how I wasn’t perfect but to ask who of us really was, I could have pointed out the faults of everyone in that room if I had wanted to. But I didn’t, instead I retreated into my room, having always preferred losing myself in a book, a movie, a video game, or hanging out with my own friends than try and pretend I was a part of something that I wasn’t. But it was okay, I had my friends, I had an amazing step brother and sister and it was they who always found me and pulled me back from that ledge that my depression had often brought me. They were my strongest supporters, my biggest fans, the people who I’ll always love and never forget, remembering always there words which will stay with me until the very end of my days. I may have been just days from learning the truth. But one thing I learned from writing this blog, which is this, appreciate your family for what it can be, not what it should be, step parents, step brothers and sisters can be just as good, or sometimes even better than the real thing, family is what you make of it, not what it should be, anyone can family, friends, co-workers, even your bosses, all you have to do is let it.

 

Okay, this has nothing to do with what I'm writing, but over the weekend I did finally get to meet my two favorite actors Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery and even in my severely sleep deprived state I can tell you, these guys are awesome and are remarkably down to earth.

Okay, this has nothing to do with what I’m writing, but over the weekend I did finally get to meet my two favorite actors Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery and even in my severely sleep deprived state I can tell you, these guys are awesome and are remarkably down to earth.

 

 

 

 

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Scars of Who We Are Chapter IX

Filed under: Life — 5 Comments
June 5, 2013

Scars of Who We Are Part IX
Young boy sitting on an old porch swing,
Waiting for his father to come and rescue him,
His tears dried and stained on his cheeks,
Wishing his life was more like his dreams,
Where nothing was ever as bad as it seems.

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Me on Easter Sunday

After the divorce it wasn’t long until my relationship with my mother began to change for the worse… But for a brief moment, I was somewhat okay with it, even though I longed and hoped my dad would one day return home, I did somewhat look forward to having two birthdays and Christmas’s every year, which for me was something and my dad always went above and beyond to give me a great Christmas, along with birthday celebrations I won’t soon forget.

It never did occur to me that my mother may have been better to me in those days just to keep me quiet about Chris who moved in with us just months after the divorce and to be honest I did like him for awhile there in the beginning, I think for the most part he did try to be a good fatherly figure to both me and my brother, so I didn’t have any real issue, plus he was a cop which back then was very cool, because who didn’t play cops and robbers when they were a kid?

His family was pretty cool too, and his dad Lewis was the best, always with a story to tell and with him being an actor, he always managed to keep me captivated with his emoting and his many voices. Not to mention the guy was awesome, always giving me pennies which back then could always win my favor, (Because I was always collecting and saving up change) Even to this day I will say no one can ask for a cooler step grandparent.

My favorite crime fighting Heroes.

My favorite crime fighting Heroes.

But I digress, because the day when everything changed for me was maybe a couple of months after Chris had started living with us and I was playing with my toys at the top of the steps, (which back then were mostly Teenage mutant Ninja turtles, which were my favorite. I can’t tell you why, but to me, you couldn’t get much better than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I loved everything about them, the toys, the cartoons, the movies, games, you name it I loved it.
tank
So there I was, playing on the top of the stairs, with my Turtles tank, and sub-marine, along with my various other Turtle related figures and (playing on the top of the stairs, was something both my brother and I were notorious for; partially because we’d be in our own little world and still be somewhat near the rest of the family and not closed off. Not to mention it made the best battlefield, the stairs in my mind would become treacherous mountain region, or become the the deep and unfathomable depths the ocean, with its perilous  underwater trenches. So, yeah I had a pretty spectacular imagination and still do.

 

It wasn’t too out of the ordinary for my mother to yell for one of us, which usually meant we made a mess somewhere, or didn’t put something away, or other typical kid stuff, that we do when we’re kids. So when I heard my mom yelling for me to get my butt into the kitchen, I honestly didn’t think anything of it, besides being a curious/nosy child I was pretty good and usually behaved myself, so I went knowing I hadn’t done anything wrong, so didn’t expect what happened to actually happen…

I stepped into the kitchen, expecting to be asked what I wanted for lunch, or to hear I had to get cleaned up to go out, but instead I was asked about a carton of grape juice that someone had left out on the kitchen table. Immediately I knew it wasn’t me, because back then I was the pickiest child in the world and I refused to drink anything other than orange, or apple juice, or well soda of course.

The Turtle Sub, man I loved this thing.

The Turtle Sub, man I loved this thing.

 

But I was extremely pick with both food and with what beverages I would drink, which may have been my downfall, because I smiled, knowing it hadn’t been me and believed my older brother would finally get into trouble instead of me. Because to be honest I had grown a little tired of him always getting me in trouble and this time I figured I was being the first questioned and with my being innocent, that all blame would fall on him.

 

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Because when she asked if I did it and I honestly told her no, she grabbed my arm, wrenching it painfully up over my head with her nails biting painfully into my arm, which startled me enough as it were, then she began screaming into my face, accusing me of lying.

 

Shaking me and swearing to me that she already knew it was me and she was sick of my lying, even as tears began racing down my cheeks, with me frantically telling her how it wasn’t me, trying to blurt out the words that I didn’t even like that kind of juice and that I hadn’t drank anything that day other than water. But she wouldn’t have it and smacked me hard across the face, leaving what felt like a burning imprint of her hand across my cheek, as she struck me again and again, ordering me now to stop crying.

 

I tried once more to to profess my innocence, but that only earned me several hard smacks to my rear, each one hard enough to lift me up off my feet, causing her nails to cut even deeper into my arm and as blood began to well up where her nails had bit into my arm, it was only then she released my arm and stopped hitting me enough to tell me how it was my fault for trying to throw myself to the floor when she held me by the arm. Then she proceeded to question me again and in a tearful display I tried once again to plead my innocence, but she grabbed me hard by the face, painfully squeezing my cheeks as she told me she already asked Dominic (My brother) and told me he had said he hadn’t done it, then I tried suggesting it was Chris (My soon to be step dad) When she told me he wouldn’t forget to return the juice and when I tried telling her it wasn’t me, she smacked me again, hauling me up off the floor and began beating me again, telling me every few swats that she would stop once I confessed and stop lying, insisting I was only making it worse for myself.

 

So… seeing no end in sight, I did what any frighted and scared boy my age would do, I confessed. I would have confessed to anything at that point and my reward was a whipping with the paddle, eight swats, (As if the beating I had been receiving hadn’t been punishment enough) Then I was grounded on top of it and ordered not to make a noise or she would give me something more to cry about.

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 I was seven years old, the first time I felt any kind hate, seven and I was already beginning to learn real fear and began my back and forth battle with myself, trying to figure out if my mother truly hated me or not. I was seven years old, when I made the biggest mistake of my life, because I was never allowed to forget this day. I was reminded every time I ever gotten into trouble, innocent or not my mother would bring this instance up, would remind me of my confession and that confession would forever mark me a liar. So I was never found innocent, even though 9 out of 10 times when I did do wrong, I would readily admit it once question and when I wasn’t guilty, I would get beaten and reminded of how big of a liar I was and how I had brought every punishment onto myself. Because if I lied once, in my mom’s world, I was a liar forever and always, allowing no room for innocence, ever. This would follow me up through my mid-twenties, when I was believe it or not, still being judged and weighed by things she had accused me of since I was seven. Making me wonder sometimes if I would have been better off if I would have just let her beaten me to death…..

 

Eventually, over the years I began to withdraw, keeping more and more to myself. Something I still struggle with today, because back in those days, I slowly learned the less of a presence I made of myself, the less I would be notice and the less i would be beaten.

 

I still remember, sitting in my room that day, wanting to destroy or break something in order to let out at least some of what I felt inside. So after beating my pillow flat, and punching my mattress into oblivion, I sat fuming in my room until my brother finally came home. It took him all of two seconds to realize something was wrong and I was upset and when he asked me what was wrong, I exploded, with my first words being “Mom hates me,” And he was quick to assure me that she didn’t. So I explained what happened and he was just like,

“Oh….” Then he smiled sheepishly and when I asked him about his smile, he said,

“I think I did leave the juice out.” And he was so cavalier about it I wanted to kill him, probably would have too if I didn’t also idolize him. Instead I told him I got punished for it and that he should tell our mom, which he claimed he would, but I doubt he ever did, but never before did I feel so alone.

 

It wasn’t until I was 15 that I learned it was all a game to her. I know this, because she all but told me it was. I was in my room and someone had broken a vase and when she came to my room and asked if it was me, I sighed, already knowing I hadn’t even touched the vase, or even knew one was broken in the first place. But, as she went on about how someone tried hiding it in the trash, underneath a bunch of stuff, which she was already claiming to be my usual M.O, I figured, “What the heck, what I can I really lose a this point?”

So with a sigh, I made my final false confession and I swear I could have knocked her over with a feather. She simply just stared at me, dumbstruck, before finally throwing her arms up in the air and saying and I quote,

“It’s not even fun anymore, if you’re not even trying to defend yourself!” And then just like that, she turned and stormed off, never punishing me, or bringing up the case of the broken vase ever again.

 

That said, she never did stop bringing up the first instance in my life with the juice, anytime my character was brought into question, she would bring my childhood back up and throw it back into my face. But adding how devious and sneaky I “always” was, because apprently kids arn’t suppose to ever explore, like I used to whenever I went somewhere new, like my aunt’s mansion. I would explore, look in all the drawers, explore every closet, etc. I was a kid, kid’s explore. I tried telling her this once, but she wouldn’t have it, sticking to her opnion that I was a sneaky little devil and would always be thus. This she kept up until just four years ago, when I had tried mending fences and when I thought everythign was going well and began, or thought I was forging a brand new relationship with her, until things fell apart and I was accused of something I would never do and that’s when I finally had enough.

I

                “Enough,” I shouted, exhausted and just tired of the whole ugly situation, (which I will talk about later in more detail)

“Just enough already,” I begged her, “you can’t keep judging me by how I was when I was seven. I was seven years old and I was a kid, but you use that to hold me accountable for things I never did and the worse part of it is, unlike my older brother, I never got into any trouble at school, or with the law, I was a good kid, I never gave you any problems, I never rebelled, I never broke curfew, I never been in any kind of trouble whatsoever, but you still hold me accountable for everything I did since I was seven, as if I’m incapable of ever changing or growing as a person. I’m so tired of you being so quick to call me liar and all these horrible things all because you believe I always lied as a kid. But truth is…truth is, I remember everything and the reasons you have for thinking I’m such a horrible person and liar, is because you wouldn’t ever let anything go, you would beat me until i confessed and not once did you ever question it. You never once realized that I always admitted to the things I did do wrong and if I ever said no to anything you would beaten me until I said yes. Whatever you have against me, let it go, please just let it go, I’m not a bad person I never was, all I wanted was a relationship with you and not because I had some grand ulterior motive, that makes you think I was just trying to get back at you for past wrongs. Which begs the question why, why would you think I would want to get back at you, unless in your heart of hearts you know you’ve done me wrong and this is your guilt, you want to believe I’m just like you, when I’m not.”

She responded by hanging up on me and we hadn’t spoken since and the crazy thing is, if she would find me and ask me for forgiveness, making just an attempt to amend past wrongs, I would forgive her, I would talk to her and never bring up the past ever again. I would start a fresh new relationship with her,  But that’s just who I am and the weight I carry and unfortunately as time goes by I know that will never happen. Even though every time the phone rings, or I check the mail, I pray to find something from her, at least telling he she’s out there thinking about me somewhere, at the very least an apology….And maybe an explanation other than the one I tell myself, which is that she’s sick and needs help, or medication, or something to help unburden this weight I carry.

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