Chapter 2: Breaking the Silence and the Cycle

I would like to start this by saying that I understand that my up front, tell all approach to life is not for everyone. All I can say is that I am sorry if I make you feel uncomfortable, but this is what works for me and it is what I believe is part of my journey. 

I am the daughter of a deeply disturbed, paranoid, alcoholic, and a perpetual victim of a negative self -fulfilling prophecy.  I want to be clear that I am not vilifying my parents. I have grown to understand that they were shaped by events and situations that were sometimes out of their control, sometimes not. I haven’t lived their lives, and I can’t say that in the same situations I wouldn’t be the same way. I can only speak for myself and how I’ve coped, sometimes well, sometimes not so well, with being their daughter.  I can now openly and honestly say that I have been abused (I hate that word) by both parents, in one way or another. Yes they’ve hurt me and yes they’ve  loved me. The truth is my family was sick before I was ever even a possibility. 

Being a child in an environment of negativity and dysfunction is very complicated. As children we model our behavior from those that raise us. I was raised in a world where screaming, yelling, name calling, and door slamming were everyday happenings.   I remember being about six, and my Mother was screaming her head off and growling at me that I was evil just like my Father. She would tell me that I was stupid, and make fun of my physical appearance.  When you’re six, you believe everything your parents tell you, because you haven’t learned to question them yet.  In that moment she put something inside of me that would be there until my late twenties.  I don’t know that any of them realized that everything that was said to me or at me, buried itself in my identity. I began to see myself the way I was described by them, this is something I still fight today at thirty one years old. 

I experienced a loneliness and hopelessness when I was living with my Mother that I can’t even put into words, reliving the feeling today brings me to tears.  I couldn’t figure out what I had done to make her hate me the way she did. The way she looked at me was with utter distaste, as if my existence was off putting to her.  There were days that I wished someone would just kill me so that I didn’t have to keep making her hate me.  Truthfully I learned pretty early to hate her too.  My childhood in that house with her was sad, confusing, and at times dangerous.  I never felt like she wanted me, or that she heard me.  She taught me to scream and hurt others as a way of getting my point across, and then she would punish me for it.  I felt like I was always in trouble, mostly just for waking up every morning.  I don’t know if it was really me she hated, or the position she put herself in having a child as a teenager.  I think in hindsight she resented me.  She has hit me, hog tied me, pushed me, and slapped me in the face. Still, nothing hurt like the way she hurt me inside. She left scars inside of my heart and my self- esteem that I don’t know will every completely fade away.   What I can’t understand is how she could do these things, knowing first- hand what it felt like.  Her Mother hated her too. 

When I was a teenager my Mom had a lot of boyfriends, who all ended up living with us.  These men were each disgusting and despicable in their own way.  There were about three drug addicts, a narcissist asshole, and a sociopath. The worst of these men, was oddly the best to me. He was a sociopath who having too much to drink one night,  ended up holding me, my Mother, my Uncle and a family friend, hostage for over four hours, while he beat my Mother mercilessly in front of us.  I thought she was going to die that night, I thought maybe I would too.  Before this traumatizing event, he lived with us for over a year. He defended me against my Mother multiple times, and couldn’t understand why she would treat her own child the way she did. Even he, a sociopathic monster couldn’t wrap his mind around it. 

The only place I have EVER felt safe was with my Grandparents. They saved me, literally and figuratively.  There was yelling and screaming in their house too, just never at me. They yelled at each other and called names, to me this was completely normal so as a kid I never thought anything of it.  They loved me. I heard it, and I felt it, they loved me.  My Grandfather was my knight in shining armor, I don’t know that I have ever felt as loved and as whole as I did in his presence. I was the absolute most important person in the world to him and he made sure I knew it. There was one night that my Mom was being abused by her boyfriend in the other room, I was scared so I called my Grandpa and told him I was sick and needed to go to the hospital, this wasn’t abnormal for me because I was really sick at that point in my life.   With tears in her eyes, my Mom told me she knew what I was doing and it was ok, that it was better I left.  I felt like a liar and a coward, leaving her when I knew what was going to happen.  I got into Grandpa’s car and started to cry, I told him I lied and that I was sorry. He brought me back to his house, made me some cookies and chocolate milk and explained to me that what I had done was very smart, and very brave, and that no one was going to be upset with me for it. 

My Grandmother, has been my acting Mother from the beginning, but particularly when I was 16 and my Mom kicked me out of the house for stealing money from her. I believe that my sheer will to not only survive, but strive comes from her. When I was little I thought she didn’t like me, when really she cared for me in ways I’ll never know. She has always been my advocate and she has always had my best interest in the forefront of her mind and her heart.  She is strong, and she is motivated and she is a damn survivor if there ever was one. She is not without flaws, I have always felt like she lacked compassion, or if not she lacked the ability to express it. If you are ever looking for someone to feel sorry for you, she is not the one. Sometimes I worry that I am that way too. Sometimes it feels like she doesn’t care because of her “brush yourself off and get back up” kind of attitude. There is no time to wallow in self-pity in her book. It is admirable, but also comes across as cold at times.  I struggle with being cold too. It isn’t that I don’t feel, its that I feel so much that I am afraid to let it out because it may swallow me whole.  I think I have this fear because of my Father. He has indeed been swallowed whole by his emotions. 

My Dad is a complicated man, with a mean streak in him like I’ve never seen in any other human being. His life story is one of heartbreak, trauma, and terror. I can’t imagine his pain, and truthfully I’ve tried just to gain some insight . My Father is the most angry person I’ve ever known, and probably ever will. He has no coping skills and absolutely cannot let anything go… ever.  He is mean, and he is emotionally selfish. He is irrational, paranoid, and totally unpredictable.  I believe that he is dangerous.  He’s also an alcoholic. My Father is highly intelligent, which I think is to his detriment.  He obsesses and over analyzes and creates elaborate conflict in his mind. The world is out to get him, and so am I depending on the day. 

My Father has abused me, but he has no idea how. He can’t see what he’s done because he doesn’t understand how to view life from anyone’s perspective but his own.  He’s called me every name under the sun, gone on and on about what an idiot I am, I am just like my Mother, I am useless, I am a typical female, blah, blah, blah.  He has had the power to reduce me to tears for my entire life, and he uses it whenever he feels he needs to. He calls it “getting my attention”. He is sick.  I went to live with him when I was nineteen after my first attempt at independent living failed.  I had no idea what was in store for me.  Living with him at nineteen through twenty two were some of the most terrifying years of my life.  There were nights that I would come home after work to, windows broken out, writing on the walls and various smashed objects strewn about the house. Of course, Dad was passed out drunk in bed.  On the unfortunate chance that I came home too early and he was still drunk and awake, I was in for a long night. If he laid eyes on me, I would become the object of his rage.  He would rant, rave, scream, yell, cry, and babble for hours until I either left again or was able to convince him to go to bed. He terrorized me for three years. 

My relationship with my Dad before I was an adult was actually pretty great. I only saw him once every few months, and he’d take me for the weekend. He would feed me pancakes, take me to Toys R Us, play video games with me, take me to Green Valley to see my Great Gram, and we’d have a great time. I think when I was little he was able to keep his demons at bay when he was with me. I think he genuinely wanted to save me from seeing that part of him. I always knew he was an alcoholic (everybody knew) I just never had to see it until I was older.  My Dad tried his best to be good to me, he always had my favorite shampoo at his house, and always gave me money for the ice cream truck when it went by, he tried to teach me things that he thought mattered and he always told me that it was his job to protect me from the world. My Dad still protects me from the world and to be honest I still feel like he is the strongest man alive. There was just a period of time that I wish someone could have protected me from him. 

Today, my relationship with my Father is strong. I have created boundaries that he cannot cross and we have figured out a balance in our lives. I tell him literally everything and he understands me in a way that no other person on this earth can. I think I inherited part of his tortured soul when I was born, there is a part of me that is dark and it is a reflection of him. I trust my Father, despite his own broken heart and shattered mind, he is always there for me never wavering.

So, I guess that’s a major part of my story. I think these people and these situations have shaped me in ways I haven’t figured out yet, and in ways that I have. No doubt, I still have a lot of work to do, to shed some of these heartaches but I’ll never stop trying to be better.  I think if we decide to break the cycle, then we will, but first we must break the silence.

Chapter 1: Living Dead Girl

I’ve decided to right a series of blogs, in chapters of my life. This helps me sort through things and have a clearer picture. They probably won’t be in order or make any sense to those who don’t know me.



Sometimes the truth is not only painful, but hideous. As I get older, many of my truths have been revealed to me in ways I never expected. Some of them have been beautiful, but some of them have been so ugly, it is painful to accept. Regardless, I have made it a habit to accept my truths, and if they are ugly, apologize when necessary and move on. I try my best to be a good person, but perfection eludes me. Being good natured helps, but unfortunately I do have a mean streak. What I am about to explain really has nothing to do with being unkind, as much as it has to do with being unfeeling.

I was riding in the car with John the other day and I had a moment when I realized that I really love just being in the car with him. Whether we are talking or just listening to the radio, I just like being in his presence and I love the way I feel when we are together. It made me flashback to past boyfriends and how it felt to be with them, how it felt to be touched by them, or just riding in the car with them. I can remember how all of that felt, except how it felt to be with my ex-husband. I can’t remember how he felt at all, to hold his hand, to be kissed, to fight, nothing. I realized that I can’t remember how that life felt because I wasn’t there. I don’t know when it happened but at some point, the real me took a vacation and left behind a drone.

I was married August 11th, 2007, and it really should have been the happiest day of my life. The wedding was on a beautiful old time paddle boat, chandeliers, beautiful moldings, on the water, at sunset, in Newport Beach. My dress was gorgeous, hair and makeup flawless, and I was surrounded by family and friends, ready to celebrate this new chapter in our lives. The presentation was literally perfect, but a presentation none the less. I know that I should have been nervous, excited, happy, but what I really felt was nothing, absolutely nothing. I felt nothing as I stared into the mirror with my perfect hair and unreal makeup, I felt nothing as the guests started to arrive, and I felt nothing as the music began.

I walked down the isle, looking at familiar faces, tear streaked and happy. All I could do was wonder how disappointed everyone would be when we got a divorce. Yes, I already knew. I knew that there was no way I could spend the rest of my life with this man, but I couldn’t stop. Our lives had taken on a momentum that was fueled with the idea of the American dream, and expectations of family. Now, I am in no way blaming anyone for my poor choices, I was weak and I should have done something to alter my course. The experience was as if I was watching someone else’s life and the movie would be over soon, and I would go back to being me. That’s pretty much how I felt for six years.

You see, when he met me I was already dead. When we met, I had already lived through so much pain and hell that my insides had died long before. At this point in my life I was a zombie, posing as a girl. I was going through the motions, and playing the hand dealt to me. I met a guy, he was simple and wanted me to love him, so I did. He wanted me to be his family so I was, he wanted arm candy so I played that part too. At certain points I was convinced that I really loved him and wanted all of the things that he did. Maybe, getting married and living a new life would heal me from all of the pain and torment of my past. I used him, though at the time I didn’t know that that was what I was doing. I thought that living my life with him would keep me safe, because he was so unimposing and plain. I can’t say that we never had good times, because that would be a lie. I just always knew that what he wanted from life was not going to be enough for me for long. I should have said something and ended it before it began, but like I said I was weak and just wanted to be safe.

We dated for 3 years and were married for 3, and I can’t really recall any of it. I also was not sober for most of it, drinking all the time and pushing down my conscience with pills. I just couldn’t let myself get clear enough to realize what I had done. This poor son of bitch had no idea who he married, hell I didn’t either. None of this erases the bad choices he made in our marriage, it doesn’t change his dishonesty , or remove his portion of guilt. All this is, is a confession.



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Fall Equinox Party

So I'm really looking forward to fall. I'm usually a summer girl, nut I've spent this summer recovering from surgery. I'm ready for the seasons to change, as well as my scenery.  I will have a full load fall semester and I'm really looking forward to it!  Something else I'm looking forward to, is having to drive myself to campus three days a week. If you know me well, you know I have major driving anxiety, a few gnarly accident and a lot of time off driving left me slightly paralyzed with fear. I am ready to get the hell over it. LA is such a sucky place to drive, ugh.

Anyway, in celebration of fall I want to have an fall equinox dinner party. Homemade apple cider, pie, maybe a turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, fried okra, and all the other fall goodies. Here are some ideas I have for it. If we're close friends I'll probably be asking you for help. ha ha

My Foot, My Foe, My Depression, My Deceptions

Turning thirty has been a game changer for me, this is the year that I step up to the plate, and change my life into what I want it to be. No more waiting for things to happen, or worrying about how my actions affect EVERYONE else. My life as a doormat, martyr, schmuck, sucker, and punching bag are over.  In twenty five days I am embarking on a journey twenty two years in the making.  Some people will take it with me, and some will be left by the side of the road.  I am going to be keeping a public journal of my journey, and figured I may as well start at the beginning.

My physical life has been less than easy, as my closest friends and family know. I have struggled with physical disabilities since the age of seven.  I’ve been asked about my scars more than once through life and many times I just lied to avoid telling my sob story. I would say I was in an accident and leave it at that.  That isn’t true, just easier to brush off.  I lied about it so much it became easier and easier to tell the lie.  The truth is, I have been fighting a war with my own body for as long as I can remember.

When I was seven, my Grandfather noticed that I began losing balance, falling, and not being able to keep up in my dance classes, seemingly out of nowhere.  I was enrolled in four weekly dance classes and a dance camp during the summer, so it was easy to see that I was losing control of my body.  He also noticed that this was only happening on my left side, and that my left foot was actually starting to change shape.  My toes, had begun to curl, and I lost my ability to stand on my tippy toes.  I was taken to the doctor, who suggested an MRI.
I remember that day, as if it is happening now. I remember the smell of the office, and the look on my Grandfather’s face as the neurologist explained to him what was going on inside my body.  At seven, I had no idea what he was saying I just knew it wasn’t good.  It turns out there was a tumor, the size of a golf ball inside of my spinal column attached to my spinal cord.  This tumor was killing the nerves leading to my left side, and my bladder.  It was determined that, at the speed it was growing I would be paralyzed within a year.  The only option was to try to remove it.  I guess you can compare it to trying to remove a wad of gum from your hair without damaging one single strand, next to impossible.

The day of my surgery, we all woke up before the sun had even come out. I was grumpy and tired, I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything and my Mom had to rub iodine all over my lower back before we left the house.  Once we got to the hospital I was put in a gown and set up on a gurney.  Both of my parents were there, my Grandmother and Grandfather as well.  I was scared, but not for the reasons that all of the grown ups were scared.  I knew I was going to get a shot, and was preoccupied with finding some way out of it. I tried reasoning, asking politely and I even shed a tear, just one.  I was given an injection as I clenched my teddy bear, to calm me down so that I could be prepped for surgery.  I said goodbye to my family with heavy eyelids and watched as my Father began to cry (he didn’t realize I saw him).  Once wheeled into the operating room, the anesthesiologist inserted the IV and began sedation. One of the nurses, held my hand and began counting backwards from one hundred with me.

The next thing I remember I was beginning to wake up, my Dad was sitting next to my bed. The moment I became coherent I needed to vomit. I remember staring into the yellow, plastic, kidney shaped bowl as I got sick and wondering what the hell was stuck all over my chest.  Once in my own room at the hospital I realized that there were several tubes and sticky suction cups attached to me, and then attached to machines that would not stop beeping.   I let the nurse know exactly what I thought about all of this with a few choice words that a third grader should not have in their vocabulary (I blame the morphine). The next few weeks were rough, I was in a tremendous amount of pain and was constantly being checked, having my dressings changed, and eating pretty awful food by my standards. I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed, and eat food that my Grandma cooked for just me.  I had to be taught how to walk again (it was as if my body had forgotten). A physical therapist came in everyday and rubbed my limbs and had me do a few exercises.  Pretty soon, I was walking from room to room on the children’s ward visiting other sick kids, reading the little ones stories and having a few wheelchair races.

When I finally got to go home, I was taken to my Grandparents house where I could recover with the aid of my Grandma full time. She lovingly changed my dressings twice a day, gave me sponge baths, and pushed me to get out of bed and do my physical therapy each day.  All I wanted was to go back to school and play with my friends. I started to suffer from some depression at this time, I had never felt so sad.  After many months I was allowed to go back to school and try to have a normal life. Unfortunately I was not like every other kid, the nerve damage I sustained caused me to be unable to determine when I needed to use the bathroom, I had to self-catheterize while at school twice a day.  Having to do this, made me prone to bladder infections, which I had on a regular basis. Sometimes they were so bad that I would vomit and have very intense fevers.  Being sick like that all of the time, made it difficult to keep my attendance.  I also could not participate in PE or any other physical activity.  Despite the removal of most of the tumor, I was still partially paralyzed and mostly numb on my left side from the waist down.

Flash forward six years, I am thirteen and in Jr. High (as it was called way back when).  I had spent the last six years trying to regain some of my abilities and have been mostly unsuccessful. I meet with an orthopedic surgeon who thinks he may be able to help with some of the pain associated with the deformation caused by the tumor.  After a few xrays and lengthy talks with the doctor, we go forward with another surgery.  This time there is hope for regained mobility after recovery. I had a complete foot reconstruction.  I don’t recall as many of the details going in for this procedure. I remember waking up again, vomiting and falling back to sleep only to wake up in the most agonizing pain I have ever experienced to this day.  I was in the hospital for about four days.  I was sent home in a below the knee cast and a set of crutches.  I remained in that cast for three months.  After the initial three months I was put in a walking cast, which was incredibly painful.  Walking again felt foreign and was very uncomfortable for the first few days.  Three months later I was out of that cast and put into intense physical therapy. I remember being in tears at every session, the combination of pain and frustration proved to be too much at times.

The following year, I was pretty mobile, dancing, walking all over the valley with my friends and so on. Freshman year, I tried out for the drill team, and got in!  I was so elated to be back to doing something I loved!  Practices were everyday, sometimes before and after school.  A few weeks in I realized that I may have bitten off more than I could chew but I wasn’t going to stop, it felt too good.  I got really crafty at hiding my foot, and my pain.  Sometimes I would get home from practice, and wouldn’t be able to get my sneaker off due to all of the swelling in my ankle.  I remember coming home and sitting on the bathroom floor crying, and hitting my foot in frustration and agony. I hated it, my foot that is. I remember contemplating chopping it off and being done with it.  About halfway through the school year I stopped showing up to practice because of the pain and slipped into a pretty serious depression. I just couldn’t do it anymore and It made me shutdown.

I found a new group of friends and something I loved just as much as dancing, alcohol and drugs.  When I was drinking and using, it was so much easier for me to forget about all of the things I was missing out on.  It also helped ease the physical pain.  Not having the support system I needed at home, left me searching for something else. After my Grandfather passed away, I really felt like I had no one. He was my best friend and the man who saved my life in so many ways.  Eventually my behavior got me thrown out of my Mother’s house at sixteen.  I lived at a friend’s place for a few months before my Dad finally found me and begged me to come home.   I went to stay with my Grandmother, which is the best thing that ever happened to me.  I was safe there, I was loved.  A few months after living with her, I cleaned up my act and began caring about my life again.  I spent the next thirteen years, living with pain and depression associated with the partial paralysis in my leg and foot.  I’ve become a master at hiding my foot due to shame. Who wants to see a scarred up, and malformed foot? Not me.  Hiding pain is pretty much second nature to me at this point.  I’ve been married, divorced, depressed, elated, in love, the only constant has been physical pain and physical limitations.  The most difficult aspect of all of this, is having the energy and motivation to do all of these physical things, and not having the ability or cooperation from your body.  I have tried to will myself into strength and ability, only to be disappointed.

I decided that this year, it all ends. No more shame, no more suffering in silence, no more hiding.  In 25 days I am going to have two procedures that will improve my mobility greatly and improve the esthetics of my foot. I am equally terrified and excited.

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It'll never be right, but it will be ok

Today is her 50th Birthday. She's out there, celebrating with people she calls friends...for today. Someone will refuse a favor or tell her some kind of truth that she doesn't want to hear. Next year, she'll celebrate with someone else.  I thought I would feel more. I turned 30, she turned 50 and I just don't feel like I think I should. I don't feel sad, I don't feel left out, hurt, offended, angry, betrayed or any of the other things she's made me feel in the past. Is this good? Is it bad? I just don't know. I stopped missing her a long time ago, but I used to be plagued with guilt over not wanting her in my life. I've done a lot of growing up I guess, and I realize I didn't need her before, so why would I need her now? The truth is I don't. So, without want or need I guess I am finally and truly free. 

The Lies About Truth

The truth... something so simple right? Wrong wrong wrong. The truth is an elusive bastard that hides itself in between thinly veiled lies. Everybody lies, its true. Lying is so much easier than being honest, sometimes we lie to ourselves about our lies so that we can rest easy that even though we are liars, we are justified so we are still good people. Lies are not simple, they are acts of deception. Lies cause pain, they complicate existence, lies are powerful.  The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves because we can't allow ourselves the pain and discomfort of our truth. We lie about who we are, we lie about who we aren't. The real question is, if we don't like who we are, why not try to change? Because we are lazy and afraid, that's why. We are a society of unruly toddlers, egomaniacs, pussies, and LIARS.  It's a pretty sad state of affairs.  

My goal in this time and place is to tell the truth. I don't care how ugly it is, how bad it sounds, what people will think. The truth really does set you free. Tell the truth, tell the truth if you love someone, tell the truth if you love yourself. If you don't love yourself, tell the truth about why. The journey is so much safer, so much easier if you are working with reality.  Don't listen to me though, these are just the ramblings of an insanely happy, fulfilled, excited, loved, honest girl. Maybe I'm doing something right...

Demons

Facing the truth of time, it always passes, moments and memories constantly being created
Just as quickly forgotten
Some memories we never forget
16, drugs coursing through my veins, invincibility pounding in my chest
Standing on the edge of dying, never feeling more alive
Fearless, shameless, clueless
I'll use my flesh to find my place

We created family where there was none
Lost and lonely children
Filling the voids with all we understood
Safety in numbers, but no one to save us from ourselves
Some will survive, some never had a chance
Nobody gets out unscathed

Sitting in my new skin, older, wiser, weathered
Afraid for the little girl who once was
Safe in my bed, in my skin, in my head
Memories of the past haunting my sleep
I saved me, from myself