part 96, or "motherfucker is a real word"

The shock of coming to terms with my mom and what she has done is starting to wear off. I mean, I was never overly joyous about it, but I'm beginning to feel this sharp pain in my heart instead of just being bummed.

I use this analogy a lot, so sorry if you've heard it before and are bored by it, you can just click that little x in the top right hand corner of your screen.

(it seems I'm a little fussy, too)

I was pitching in a softball game for my P.E. class in high school when this guy hit a line drive into the middle section of the left side of my ribcage. I blacked out, but I didn't pass out. I knew I was going to fall, so I just focused on not ending up with my face in the ground because I thought it would be embarrassing (yes, that's actually what I was thinking at that time - high school. I don't miss it at all).

Anyway, I ended up on my knees and when I started to get my vision back the pain stabbed me in my ribs. I couldn't breathe or talk for a few seconds, but those abilities came back pretty quickly. I stood up slowly and looked down at my arms. My left arm was curled tight against my middle where the ball hit me, but my left glove was also there, and it had the softball in it, which made me feel a little better about the pain, but it still hurt like a motherfucker.

You know, I start with these analogies, and I think I have them all planned in my head before I start writing, but then I start to piece it all together as I'm writing, and it unintentionally turns out being some uber-cliché life lesson.

The whole reason I was telling the story about getting hit by that ball was because that is how I am feeling when I think about my mom. The straight, direct hit to my chest, the fading out of what was happening, and the falling on my knees, and the sharp pain stabbing me. That's what it's like.

But then when I got to the part in the story about not falling on my face, about getting back up, and about realizing I got that line-driving bastard out by holding onto the ball even though I was not aware of it, I was all like - "hey, wait - that also is analogous to my experiences throughout my life," and then I was like, "man, I hate that cheesy shit," and then I rolled my eyes and groaned on the inside.

I am a bit bummed that it turned out that way. The physical feeling of being hit by that ball really is so much how I'm feeling about my mom, but it’s a nice tidy lesson about getting back up when I'm down, and I really hate clichés. But there you have it.

I've pretty much been avoiding the mom pain by looking straight through it and out the other side. Doing that works for a while, but I don't want to see things through the mom pain, I want to see things through my own eyes.

At my last therapy session, I said something about the mom pain and my therapist said, "it's really deep, isn't it?" I looked at her and said, "mmhm" because it's true, but I didn't feel like elaborating so I just stared off for a few seconds and though about the giant version of the biggest knife in the butcher block aimed at me, the very tip already poking through my shirt and pressing against my skin, and anticipated how it was going to feel as it went through my chest and knowing it was my mom shoving it in.

And then I said, "but we don't have to talk about that right now," and my therapist said, "okay." She's awesome. So I put my mom back in her box in my head and put the lid on it. I told my therapist that I would be okay putting it off for now, since it's not a brand new box - those are the ones that knock me off my ass, but this wasn't a new box, and then I thought about how I felt when I first realized that box existed, and I couldn't remember, and my therapist said that box has always been there, and I just nodded my head because I didn't feel like saying anything at all.

part 95, or "keepin on keepin on"

So it's been awhile, huh?

I spent the entire Christmas break hunkered down, eating and reading novels. I managed to gain back the weight I lost when all of the shit started going on with my mom. With all of my food issues, it is a pleasant surprise to find that I am actually relieved to have put that weight back on, to feel just right again, just healthy. I never thought I'd see that day. One more point for progress, I guess.

I started back at school a couple of weeks ago. I didn't pass my statistics class with a high enough grade to go on to the next statistics class. That means I am not graduating AGAN.

I didn't mind doing all of the work in the stats class, but when it came down to the tests, I had a very, very difficult time just getting the information from the test question into my brain long enough to process it and keep it all together so that I could spit out an answer.

Its been terribly frustrating. I spoke with the head of the department, and had a meeting, as well. My problem with stats is that the part of my brain needed to do that shit has been pretty much vaporized by high levels of cortisone. In other words, PTSD killed the stats part of my brain. I presented the argument that the university was not providing adequate accommodations to regarding my disorder, but they just suggested that I change my major.

I actually cried during that meeting. None of the tears made it all the way out of my eyeballs, so maybe it wasn't really crying. But I just sat in front of those people and told them that I could not - was not capable of - processing that type of information in the format required to pass the class. I already have accommodations through the disabilities office - I get extra time on exams. They kept referring to that in that meeting, as though I had not just told them repeatedly that I could have all the time in the world, but my brain is not going to eventually re-materialize and allow me to do the goddam statistics problems.

They gave me the guidelines for appealing their decision to the dean's office and wished me luck.

In the meantime, I'm 10 credits short of a bachelor's degree. I technically have almost enough credits for two bachelor's degrees, so what else could I do? Go home and cry? I've been struggling to get through this shit for over six years, and that's only the six years at this particular university.

I've been struggling with it my whole life, to achieve this recognition by society that I am smart and hard working. I didn't finish high school, and I only had one semester left of that. I only lasted one and a half quarters the first time I tried to go to college, and that was almost fifteen years ago.

But I've never stuck with something as long as have with the process of getting this fucking piece of paper that will validate my worth on a mainstream level. I quit high school with only a little way to go, and I have resented the stigma of being a high school dropout ever since. The stigma has largely been imposed upon myself, but when my brother and sister graduated from high school, they got parties and cakes and presents and money and a financial and social boost into secondary education.

When I got my G.E.D., I got my mom off my back and a certificate in the mail.

I tried to be proud of my high scores, but no one really cared that much. Apparently, scoring in the top 10% on the G.E.D. does not mean anything beyond gaining the eligibility to work at a gas station.

When my brother was failing his senior year, my parents enrolled him in a private school where he was able to finish up and graduate on time.

My sister never struggled with such things, so it was easy for her to stay on that path, going from home to college to a house in the suburbs. My brother didn't go to college right away, but he became a missionary instead. He spent a few years travelling the globe and telling people about Jesus, and his star shined just as brightly as my sister's.

I became a homeless drug addict, and then got pregnant with my drug dealer's baby at the age of 18. I married him, and we went off and worked our asses to the bone to take care of ourselves and our baby, but that apparently counts about as much as scoring high on the G.E.D. I don't suppose it was any big surprise to anyone at all when we got divorced and I moved back in with my parents less than two years later, my baby boy alongside me.

I didn't ask my parents if I could move back in, I just did it. I figured that way they couldn't tell me I couldn't live there.

My mom made it very clear to me - over and over again - that she was not going to be one of those people who end up raising their own grandchildren. The idea of leaving my baby in the cesspool that was my childhood home had not once crossed my mind, so I didn't take it too personally.

Not at that time, anyway.

I don't like to think I sit around and feel sorry for myself. I have always believed that if I didn't succeed at something, it was because I did not put forth enough effort. My parents did tell me I could grow up to be anything I wanted, but then they taught me to believe I was too lazy to do the work to get there.

I wasn't lazy. I was traumatized. By them. A lot. Fucking assholes.

Anyway, here I am now still trying to do the work and not succeeding. But now I know it is not because I am lazy. Its because I grew up in a goddam horror movie and the constant threat of inescapable pain and death made it hard for me to concentrate on my school work.

That's what it felt like in that meeting - like it didn't matter how hard I worked, something that harmed me a long time ago and was completely beyond my control would prevent me from achieving the success of getting that stupid piece of paper that would mark my social position as "college graduate."

I don't really think that piece of paper is stupid. I imagine if I do eventually get one, I will sleep with it under my pillow for a few nights, and then have it professionally mounted into some garish display of pride, one that screams, "I'm a college graduate!" It would be awesome.

So instead of quitting, I decided to go ahead with the appeals process and go to the dean with the other papers I have - the ones that say I am broken, but its not my fault, and that the university is legally bound to accommodate my disability so that I can graduate after pouring thousands of dollars and hours and sweat and tears into their undergraduate psychology program.

I guess we'll see how that goes.

For now, I am in the process of changing my major to (drumroll, please) CRIMINOLOGY! I don't know if this criminology program existed at the time I started school, but I'm glad I found it, even if it is six years later and will add at least another year of going to school before I graduate.

Despite the many frustrations and disappointments, I am actually really enjoying going to school again. I'm excited about what I am learning, and am confident that I can do this. The only stats requirement for this program is a class called "intro to political research." I mean, come on. I can do that with my hands tied behind my back while in a dissociative trance (it feels really good to be able to laugh about these things, even if no one else gets it).

Who knows? Maybe by this time next year I will be about to graduate with two bachelor's degrees and several minors.

I have seen this t-shirt on campus a lot: WARNING: EDUCATED BLACK WOMAN. I love it because it is so true - empowering an entire class of people who have been systemically programmed only to fail is truly frightening to the people already in power.

I'm thinking maybe I will get a t-shirt that says: WARNING: EDUCATED MENTALLY ILL WOMAN. That sounds very frightening, don't you think? I don't think I'd actually have the balls (how misogynistic - maybe I will just start saying that I don't have the ovaries) to do that, but it puts a big smile on my face imagining that I will.

part 94, or "down, down, down today"

*** TRIGGER ALERT***

Happy New Year! I don't really mean it, I'm just saying it to be polite. I hate New Year's, almost as much as I hate Halloween. Just that one day, though, and New Year's Eve, not the whole year. January 2nd comes along and makes everything better pretty quickly.

I really do wish very good things for everyone in the coming year, but I guess I have a hard time acknowledging the significance between December 31 and January 1. My years are big circles, not bookended so much by traditionally celebratory times, not even my birthdays.

My years are bookended by my kids' birthdays, my wedding anniversary, my sobriety date, and now I can add my dad's death into the mix, as well (it will be one year since he died on the 15th).

There's just so much though. So much to remind me of the bad things.

When I was little, for a few years in a row, my family would check into a fancy local hotel for New Year's. A lot of people we knew would do it, too, and the parents would all go to the party downstairs, and the kids would run back and forth between each family's room and have a very fun time.

I don't know what happened. The first year was really, really fun, and I was excited about the next year when it came around. But I don't remember what happened, except that my parents came back to the room much earlier than they had the year before, and I made a nest in the closet and slept there, but it was right next to the door, so all night I could hear drunk people staggering around and being loud right on the other side of the wall.

That is the same hotel my dad and one of the neighbors took me to and took turns raping me and torturing me and doing things over and over again that I was certain would end my life. It was an especially humiliating and degrading incident. I don't remember if it was on New Year's, though, and I don't remember how old I was, but I think it was just before or just after I turned 13.

When I was really little, like three or four or something, my dad took me with him on a trip to do very bad things to someone. What I remember about that trip is an abandoned train car in a small meadow with two or three other abandoned train cars scattered about. My dad used one of the train cars as the room to do very bad things to this particular person.

I remember sitting on the edge of the train car - as far as I could go without falling out the door (it was a lot higher above the ground than I had imagined), and as close to the right as I could, almost pressing myself into the narrow side wall. The edges of the train had a lot of rusty spots on it, and I picked at them, and I could feel my dad doing things behind me, and sometimes he would say things to me, and tell me to do things, but I mostly remember just focusing on the rust and waiting until we could leave.

At one point I asked my dad if I could go look in the other train cars. I imagined that they would be like the one we were in, but with none of the bad things, and I could pretend I lived there. My dad said I could, but when I got over to one of the other cars, it was so dark and formidable, I was too scared to even look inside.

So I went back to the first train car and sat on the edge and picked at the rust until it was time to leave.

I became terrified of trains. Asleep in my own bed at home, I would be woken up by the train whistle a couple of miles away from our house in the middle of the night, and I would feel this terror, and I would go into my parents' room and tell them the train was going to get me, and they let me sleep in their bed with them.

My dad thought it was very cute, and would do mocking imitations of me saying "the train is going to get me" throughout the years following.

I couldn't fall asleep in their bed, though, because I would have to stay awake and stare at my dad's hulking back beside me and make sure he didn't forget I was there and roll over on me and smother me. I guess it was better than being by myself in my own bed with the damn trains, though.

It just sucks - it is so, so shitty - that the "safe" place I had to go to in the middle of the night when I woke up terrified was the bed my parents slept in. It's even shittier that I didn't feel safe there, I just felt less scared than I did in my own room with that train bearing down on me.

I don't know - I am bummed today. Being in this city is killing me. All of the bad things happened here, or near here, and all of the bad people (the ones that aren't dead) live here. The neighborhood I grew up in and got raped in and molested in and pimped out in is literally only a mile from the house I live in now.

I hate the trees here, and the sounds, and the stores, and the gas stations, and the streets, and the recreation centers, and the schools, and especially the churches. I hate the people who walk and jog and ride bikes with their kids. Well, I don't really hate them, I just very much resent that they can go outside and do things and not be constantly reminded of pain and terror.

I gotta get out of here. It feels like when I was waiting for my dad to die - there was absolutely nothing I could do but wait until it happened, and then gradually forget the way it felt to be in the world where he was alive. My dad was 62 when he died - it was in some ways interminable waiting for it to happen, but when it did, it seems like it happened much sooner that I thought it would.

I knew he was going to die, and I could not believe he had made it that far with how unhealthy he was, but I just didn't trust that it was going to happen.

And then it happened.

Maybe that is what will happen with being here still in this town. It seems interminable now, but it really will happen soon, and then when I am out of here, I can gradually forget what it was like having no choice but to be here.

That will be nice.