tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27221679727580147992024-03-12T23:51:44.293-04:00Putting it all out there...I'm a survivor. Of a lot of shit. I am putting it all out there.Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-17132891659983871742013-09-11T09:58:00.001-04:002023-07-24T22:36:09.970-04:00I'm Telling<div>Update on Book access, 7/24/2023: I don't have a website anymore. If you'd like to purchase the book version of this blog, it is for sale on Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Im-Telling-Putting-There-Memoir/dp/1484147162/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=rebecca+raymer&qid=1690252484&sr=8-2" target="_blank">here</a>. I am on Instagram and Threads @rannray.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Original post from 9/11/2013</div><div><br /></div>This blog is now in book form! I released it with footnotes and photos, and you can check it out at my new website,<a href="http://www.rebeccaraymer.com/" target="_blank"> www.rebeccaraymer.com</a>. It is available as a FREE download for a limited time, but you can also buy a paper copy if you want.Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-44354389949004949262013-03-26T15:05:00.000-04:002013-03-26T15:05:36.240-04:00Epilogue<span lang="EN"><span style="font-size: large;">Oh my GAWD! It feels so good to sit down and type away - it has been entirely too long, and I am excited about getting back to expressing myself with the written word. I won’t be re-opening this particular blog, though. As the title of this post implies (or really straight up states), this is the epilogue for puttingitallouthere. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A LOT has happened in the past four months, which is about how long it has been since I last posted here. One of the biggest things that has happened is WE GOT THE FUCK OUT OF PEACHTREE CITY!!! I really was not sure it would ever happen, but here I am in my new home, NOT in Peachtree City!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is very nice to be able to live in a place where I can just breathe in and out. I do that all day long here, just breathe in and out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I make my bed everyday - literally EVERY DAY. That means I am not IN my bed for hours and hours. I have to admit I owe a lot of that to the fact that we only have basic TV, and if nothing else gets me out of bed, daytime TV will do the trick every time. It is AWFUL, mostly because about 80% of it is commercials implying that I am fat and depressed and have bad skin and ugly hair. I mean, I’m not saying any of that doesn’t apply to me, but I don’t want to be constantly reminded of that shit. It is the opposite of what TV is really supposed to be: unreality, or at the very least, someone else‘s reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I go outside every day, too. We don’t have a yard anymore, so I take the dog out every few hours or so. When it is over 50 degrees (Fahrenheit, just in case you were wondering), my family and I walk for miles and miles and miles outside. There is so much to see that has absolutely nothing to do with Peachtree City, and so many faces of people who have not raped me, or known bad things were happening to me and looked the other way, or of condescending assholes who find it easier to write me off as insane than to actually consider the truth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Guess what else? I clean now. No, seriously. And I don’t wait until whatever is growing on any given surface begins to move independently before I get rid of it. I actually clean BEFORE there is a chance for anything at all to grow on any given surface. Is that crazy, or what? I fucking LOVE it here!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">You may have noticed that I have not disclosed where I moved to. Maybe some day I will, but for right now the anonymity of my location gives me a feeling of such safety that I am going to hold on to it for as long as possible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There have been some bad things that have happened while I have lived here, but not new bad things, just more of the old bad things. I guess since I can breathe here, my brain has decided it is time for me to just drop all of the blocking and just remember. It has been difficult, but mostly sad. I love where I live so much, though, that even processing bad shit has become not so devastating. I remain present a lot more, meaning I don’t dissociate as much, and while that means I feel more, I can also move on faster. I haven’t really been getting stuck in my mind so much, and there is so much beauty and wonder to explore in the world, I am glad my brain can be here more often to soak in as much of it as possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another big thing is that I recently had to have x-rays done. I read this book, The Bean Trees, about six months ago, and in it a horrendously abused little girl had to get x-rays, and the doctor was able to see multiple old fractures in her bones. This was all I could think about when it came time to schedule my own x-rays, and I was scared.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have had this battle in mind for as long as I can remember between confronting my memories and whether or not they are real. One side of me knew something bad would show up, something left over from a long time ago. In other words, evidence. The other side of me knew that nothing would show up from a long time ago, because none of the bad stuff ever happened. Needless to say, it gets pretty contentious in my mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Getting these x-rays was one of those monumental moments of truth in which one of the sides of me was going to win, and the other side of me was going to lose. Being fully aware of that, I avoided getting the x-rays for months. I finally went and got them done about three weeks ago. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I first started remembering stuff, I obsessively sought out evidence, anything that could put some concrete into the shit flying around in my head. But when it came to seeing these images of the inside of my body, and seeing the remnants of the violence I experienced, so much of me wanted there to be no evidence in those x-rays. I would have given anything to see my bones all smooth and intact, with no injuries apparent anywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But that is not what happened, and of course I knew it would be like that, but I have just had a really hard time giving up that battle in my mind. It is such a bewildering experience having one side of me win at the same time the other side of me loses. Seeing the images of the old fractures in my pelvis and hips, though, ended that battle succinctly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I didn’t want to look at it, at the x-ray up on the light board. My head kept getting full of air, like I was on an airplane, and I felt like everything was tilting slightly to the left (always the left - I don’t know why). I just wanted to move on and not discuss anything that showed up on the x-rays, just skirt around it and move on with my day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I knew that I would be upset with myself if I didn’t look, so I did. My doctor pointed out these faint lines in my bones. Some were bigger than others, and some were difficult to see, but they were there. Between four and six old fractures is what my doctor said. All consistent with the abuse I had described, she also said. All consistent with the lasting effects of the types of injuries I am now seeking treatment for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I got rocked a bit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’m getting rocked a bit again, now, thinking about it so much. I mean, how much pressure does a person have to put on a child’s pelvis to fracture it multiple times over a period of 17 years? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is the first time I have been able to see myself as a child being injured. It isn’t abstract anymore. It is real. It has made me very angry, and I have begun to feel some sincere outrage for the damage done to that child I was. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is an aspect of having these x-rays that soundly validates my memories of being abused. It is proof. It means I wasn’t lying, and I’m not crazy, and it really did all happen. But I am too sad to think of it as a big fat “I told you!” </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am surprised I have not wanted to get copies made and sent to my mom and my brother and my sister so they could see the evidence, have it right there in their faces. I am surprised I have not wanted to vindicate myself to them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But it just doesn’t matter who believes me or not anymore. All that really matters at this point is that I believe me now. There just isn’t room for much of anything else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Except for this post, of course. Those x-rays are a big reason I wanted to write this epilogue. I wanted people to know there was proof, evidence any human could see with her or his own eyes. So I guess maybe I do want to be vindicated in some way, and that is why I am writing about this now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I think it is really just that this is where this part of the story ends: the process of not knowing at all, and then remembering, and then not knowing what the fuck was real, and what wasn’t. That is where it all started, and I guess now that I know - conclusively - it is all real, this is where that particular process can end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, so time for the next chapter.</span></span>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-5218451496851702282012-11-30T16:07:00.000-05:002012-11-30T16:07:42.570-05:00part 129, or "with love, TTFN"<br />
I have been feeling better and better about so many things. This past year has really yielded a lot of hope for me. For the first time in my life, I am facing an existence free of constant reminders of what I have done and what others have done to me. I am getting closer and closer to leaving this hell hole behind, and having my own life to live in a place I can call home.<br />
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As things have been falling into place these past few months, I am feeling less compelled to write in this blog. Don't get me wrong - I have been writing on my new anonymous blog, and have also written a short story I will be submitting to a contest. I am excited about how my writing has evolved from something I was compelled to do into an experience I sincerely enjoy.<br />
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The short story contest I am entering has made me realize that I can write short stories and enter them into contests in a relatively simple and inexpensive manner. Blogging has gotten me to the point of accessing my emotions deeply enough to put them into words in 1,000 to 1,500 word instalments, and then continue to function in the present. That's pretty much what short stories are, right?<br />
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I used to read my blogs...it was so strange seeing my thoughts and feelings and pain and torture and growth all laid out in a public diary. Every now and then, I would start from my first post and read every entry to that date. I stopped doing this after about twenty posts, though, because that is a lot to read and I already know what it says, so what is really the point?<br />
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I also have gotten to a place where I can write about all of this shit, post it online, and leave it behind. I have gradually stopped ruminating about every detail I have revealed about myself and my experiences, and learned to just spit out whatever it is that has been pressing my mind, and then let go of it and appreciate the relief from a little bit more darkness.<br />
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I cannot express how important this blog has been to me, and to my recovery. Beyond the catharsis of getting my troubles out of my head, I have thrived on the encouragement of people I had not spoken to in decades, and acquaintances revealing their similar grief, and complete strangers letting me know my words made them feel stronger. It has truly been a miraculous gift.<br />
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I have made so much progress since I have started putting it all out there, but it has been about only one facet of my life. I know I have mentioned that there were other things my dad did, and that I witnessed and experienced, but have not been able or willing to share any of that with the world. My obsessions and fixations have gradually come to center around these other events, and images, and feelings, and horrors. I think that is largely due to the fact that I have been keeping them all so close to me, and not setting them free into cyberspace.<br />
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This is where my anonymous blog comes in. In many ways, writing in that blog is like starting over again, like I have to go through the same processes with these other things that I did with what I wrote about here. It is really difficult. I have the time and the space and the stamina and the ability to make that effort, though. This blog has gotten me to this point.<br />
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So I guess this would be a good place to leave this tome of misery and hope, just as I am leaving behind the initial recovery phase and so much of the pain of my past. It is time to move on.<br />
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So, um, yeah.<br />
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Thank you readers, for giving me this opportunity to heal. I am eternally grateful to you, the recipients of the angst and joy of the past few years. Thank you for helping me to love who I am, and I have every hope that each of you are loving who you are, too.<br />
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<3 class="goog-spellcheck-word" span="span">Rebecca</3><br />
Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-2322568524727588822012-11-12T13:43:00.000-05:002012-11-12T13:43:33.346-05:00Part 128, or "its time to throw down"<div>
I had therapy yesterday, and as soon as I got settled in, I told my therapist that I feel really good and like I don't really need to talk about anything. Of course, I knew as I was saying those words that something would come up that I needed to talk about.</div>
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One thing I found myself surprised to express in that session was how difficult this has all been. I feel now that I am in the light at the end of the tunnel, and I can finally get back to (or start) living my life. Where I am right now is what gave me hope the whole time I was working toward it. I haven't gotten here in the way I thought it would happen, and it has taken a hell of a lot longer to get here than I could have even comprehended.</div>
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I think if I knew how long it would take to get me where I am now, I may not have even started the journey. If I knew the pain and drudgery and horror the past six years would bring before it all started, I am sure I would be dead now, because I don't think I would have continued to choose this route. This route has fucking sucked.</div>
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And I know I am writing about it in the past tense; I do not for a moment think my life is going to be all shits and giggles from here on out, but I finally have a solid experience to proclaim is behind me. Six years ago (or was it seven?), I was tormented by a desperation I didn't even really know existed. I don't feel desperate anymore. I don't feel beholden to the past or to whether or not anyone else believes what I have to say. </div>
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I don't understand how it is that I got this far, though. I mean, I understand the pain and agony of living this process...but I don't understand how someone so keenly pressed into a lifepath of misery and shame could have possibly been re-routed to where I am now. I was raised to hate myself, and to hate other people. My earliest directions were to have pain, to be hurt and hurt other people. I was taught from birth that hate and shame comprised the entity that is me. </div>
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Where I am now does not happen often in the world, and I am actually quite shocked that my parents failed to make me into a snivelling imp. They were very talented and astute at turning a child's reality into a pit of writhing vipers. I mean, as far as brainwashing goes, my parents were the best. I would not have been surprised if, given positions of huge power, my parents were lumped into history with Charles manson and Hitler. </div>
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In fact, I have specifically studied Hitler because he reminds me of my dad, and learning about his personality and actions and habits was very familiar to me. At the time it was exciting, but now I find the minds of charismatic sociopaths to be boring. They all seem to be very similar in a very rudimentary way, and that is all there is to them: a bag of tricks and snake oil, and the ability to peddle it to people who have desperation living in them, and there are a lot of people who fit that description.</div>
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This is not to say I am not terrified of sociopaths, because I am - body and soul terrified. They are very dangerous people who are very talented at hurting others, and who have only a longing for hurting others. Talent with a coinciding motivation is what greatness is built on. Whether or not the greatness is positive or negative is not really relevant.</div>
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But I have always been terrified, and I believe it is unchangeable. I will probably feel terrified for the rest of my life. But the thing about terror is, since I have been on such intimate terms with it for so long, it does not pose as much as a threat or hurdle as it used to - not psychologically, anyway. I believe it will be very difficult for anyone to intimidate me intellectually. I have mastered the art of bullshit, and now it has no power over me! Well, not very much power anyway.</div>
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When a manipulator's greatest weapon is fear, and I am already scared anyway, it takes some wind out of the manipulator's sails - what the fuck are they going to do? Scare me some more? The more scared I get doesn't affect my ideals and values so much anymore, so scare me all day long - no one can do anything worse to me than what has already been done, and I got through all of it the first time, so...yeah. </div>
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Fear is the number one motivator. Its what money and power and religion and politics are all about, but in my recognition and acceptance of my own constant terror, and by allowing the whole world to see it all, I am finding myself free as a bird.</div>
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So, yeah, if you want to beat the shit out of me, I will definitely run away from you. But if you want to fuck with my head, good luck with that. My head has transcended the power of getting fucked with. The power in that is not that I am a threat to anyone else, or that I want to scare people or hurt people with my perspective, it just means that I am not going to automatically submit to anything I feel is in any way tainted with bullshit. I am free as long as I am completely honest, and honesty is not nearly as painful as being raped by my own parents, so I think I am going to stick with the honesty.</div>
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I do keep feeling uncomfortable using such terms of finality and confidence. I know it is possible - and that it most likely will happen - that I will get sucked into some bullshit and get my head fucked with again. It is a part of life.</div>
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But now I have the most amazing armor against bullshit, and I feel so much safer being in the real, live world. The world really has so much beauty, and I am very pleased to be able to see it clearly, without my fear holding me back.</div>
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Going back to whether or not I would have chosen this route if I had known what it was going be like, I do know that I would still go this way. All I have do is think a moment about what it felt like at the beginning, and I know I would choose this route again. But this route has still fucking sucked.</div>
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Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-81438013293215213142012-11-01T11:08:00.001-04:002012-11-01T11:11:55.400-04:00part 127, or "post-op...alyptic"<div><p>So it turns out all of my guts had grown together, and that had to be all cleaned up during the surgery for my hysterectomy. Aside from taking much longer than had originally been anticipated, the procedure went very well, and I am very pleased with the progress of my recovery. Enough about my guts, though - I mean they are guts, and the surgeon didn't find anything interesting in them (like a twin, or human teeth, or a colony of worms), so that's that.</p>
<p>I apparently prepared for the emotional and psychological aspects of the hysterectomy well. I haven't had any emotional or hormonal fallout at all. It feels a lot like when my dad died, like losing such a significant part of myself would have been devastating if it was happeneing to any one else, but it is happening to me, so it is just a big relief.</p>
<p>I feel good. I am really feeling the symbolic and literal and spiritual parrallels of everything going on in my life. It seriously just feels really good.</p>
<p>One thing that has been on my mind a lot is my mom, and how different the circumstances would have been if she was still a part of my life. I am really relieved I did not have to deal with her making my surgery all about her, or making light of my experience, or judging my decisions about very major things in my life. I also am glad I did not have to keep track of all the people who wished me well and wanted to be a part of the superficial aspects of the healing process, like my brother and sister, and my mom's friends. </p>
<p>I realize how snooty and disaffected that might sound, but it is like when anyone uses the phrase "well, bless her heart!" It is a contrived reaction to something bad happening to someone you don't really give a shit about, but you don't want anyone to know you don't give a shit about the person something bad is happening to. Then there is the obligation on the part of the person whose heart is being blessed to acknowledge how wonderful and thoughtful and gracious the heart-blesser is, or dire social consequences will follow. It is all very old-money and Southern. I hate it.</p>
<p>I also am glad that I don't have to deal with justifying to my mom the validity of my hysterectomy. When I was a kid, one of my aunts had a hysterectomy. Up until then, I had been under the impression that a hysterectomy was something devastasting and terrible, that having one meant you were forever disfigured and marked as "less than," and were one to be pitied. When my aunt had her hysterectomy, though, my mom was really irritated about it all. My mom said that my aunt was making a big deal out of normal things, and that she just wanted the attention a valid hysterectomy may have warranted. </p>
<p>She was the same way about a family that were our close friends, swearing the mom had Munchausen's by proxy, and had imposed imaginary bad things on her daughters so that hysterics and surgeries and conditions and fears of infertility were a constant part of their lives. Now those the daughters are all grown up, and it turns out one of them is not able to have children, and after my own experiences, I really resent my mom's way of invalidating other people's pain and hardship.</p>
<p>So I guess what I learned from my mom is that hysterectomies are horrible and devastating and life changing IF the person having it did not somehow bring it upon herself by pretending to be sicker than she really was. Otherwise, it was just another "bless her heart" on the outside, and then talking shit about feigned symptoms and histrionics behind closed doors. I am glad I didn't have to submit myself as fodder for either of those categories, especially since I was actually really excited about how much better I might feel after a hysterectomy. I mean, I don't feel any need to be pitied or condescended to, and frankly have not been.</p>
<p>My aunt, and our family friend and her daughters, were on the "I'm super crazy, look at me" end of the bless-her-heart spectrum, and I did always view them as being somehow insincere in the way they went about their lives. Like something was wrong with them, like their feelings and thoughts were to all be discounted because somewhere in it all is a big pile of steaming dog shit - pretty much the way my mom presented me to the world.</p>
<p>I did not want to be like those crazy self-absorbed people, even if in reality they were much nicer to me than my mom was, because going to all kinds of different lengths to call attention to yourself was the worst kind of person there was. In hindsight, I would call that a complete absence of compassion, and having no compassion is the lonliest way to live. I wonder how lonely my mom feels on a moment to moment basis.</p>
<p>Before I wrote about my aunt who had a hysterectomy, I thought about how my doing so could be contrived as stiring shit up, "sewing discord among [sisters]," and basically calling my mom out for being such a petulent bitch her whole life. Will my aunt read this post and realize that her pain and trauma were the butt end of my mom's disdain? Maybe. Am I intentionally attempting to interefere with whatever intact relationships my mom has at this time in her sad little life? Maybe. Am I being a spiteful little bitch? Maybe.</p>
<p>But do I give a shit if my motives are insincere and non-therapeutic and simply petulant, like my mom's motives so often are? No. </p>
<p>But if I don't give a shit about that, does that mean I am taking a great risk by leaving my viewpoints and conclusions vulnerable to dismissal by others? If my viewpoints and conclusions are dismissed by others, does that mean they are not valid? </p>
<p>Who gives a fuck? </p>
<p>My mom is a cunt. FYI, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I really just felt like calling her that.</p>
<p>Having the hysterectomy behind me makes me feel clean, and strong, and capable. Perhaps paradoxically, it gives me a keener sense of my femininity, of my place in the world as a woman, and of my ability to know what it is to have respect for myself. </p>
<p>On a different note, I am done with school. I am not officially graduating, but I am done. As disappointing as it was to let that goal of being a college graduate go, especially after all of the time and money and energy I have put into it, I feel really good about this, too. Having the piece of paper does not mean to me now as much as it did when I started school seven years ago. Also, it is very easy for me to see that all of that time and money and effort actually do mean something - my failure to get a diploma does not dismiss the abundance of knowledge and self-worth that I have acquired along the way.</p>
<p>By redefining my perception of what being a college graduate means to me, am I making excuses to justify throwing in the towel? I don't fucking know.</p>
<p>What I do know is that I am tremendously excited about having so much time to write! I am espeially excited about a new project I am doing anonymously, about all of the things I have been scared to reveal in this blog, where people know me, and can use the information I publish here as a means of judging me. Also, where it would be easier for others to be hurt by what I have to say. I am excited to put all of this other stuff out there without the burden of identity. </p>
<p>I don't know if anyone will read my new anonymous blog (I probably won't be advertising it), or if they will believe what I write there. It really is so tremendously fucked up, even more fucked up than what I have revealed in this blog. But I recently found a quote by Maya Angelou: "There is no greater burden than bearing an untold story inside of you." It is so, so, so true, but now I have a means of unburdening myself of those other stories! </p>
<p>Unforunately, I cannot reveal my new anonymous blog here, you know, because it is anonymous. But I am certainly going to continue posting here - writing this blog has been my life blood these past few years, and I have grown accustomed to having life in my blood. So now, while continuing to maintain the strength I have built up for myself, I am starting a new chapter - perhaps even a new life - with my uterus-less body, and enough college credit hours for four different bachelor's degrees (but not even a single actual degree), and with my physical and mental health, and with my beautiful husband and sons, and - miracle of all miracles - with peace of mind.</p>
<p>Seriously, it feels really good.</p>
</div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-22873553840772239252012-10-13T16:41:00.001-04:002012-10-13T16:59:07.163-04:00Part 126, or "the clermont lounge"<div><p>So it is already the 13th, and I have not posted anything this month. A big part of that is my inability to type efficiently on my tablet, but I am figuring it out. </p>
<p>Another big part is that I have been largely processing the same shit I wrote about in my last post, and it is really painful to think about, and to feel those feelings, and to live so closely with the reality of it, and writing about it just makes it more real. I guess I've had to shore up a bit before l could start moving again.</p>
<p>Things have gotten much easier in a lot of ways over the past month. There has been such a tremendous diminishing of stress - its been fantastic. Unfortunately, I have just been so exhausted all of the time. My mind is all excited about going out in the world and living life, but my body is all like, "dude, hang on a second." It is the complete opposite of what I have been accustomed to.</p>
<p>I am relieved to know that I do have to have surgery to remove my gimpy uterus. I am done with it, anyway, and the idea of not feeling constant pain, and of having more energy, is so exciting! </p>
<p>There are many emotional aspects of having my uterus removed that I am kind of worried about. I wonder if I will feel a great sense of loss, or if my hormones will be going crazy. I keep thinking about when I was 17 and had an ovarian cyst, and I went into surgery thinking the cyst would be removed laproscopically, and then waking up to learn that I had a new six inch incision across my abdomen, and one less ovary. It was very devastating.</p>
<p>But then I think about where I was in my life then, how I was still in that treacherous prison of childhood, and had no way to empower myself. My mind is a much different place now. I think I may feel some loss at part of my body being removed from me, but also relief. It is happening at a very metamorphic stage in my life, and it is like the pain of the past is going to be symbolically removed from me when they take out my uterus.</p>
<p>It is really so literary, the symbolism of it all. My uterus representing my feminity, how it was invaded and distorted by vile intrusions before my first conscious memories even began to take shape. Also how it was the stage for that little speck of my dad to intertwine with that littke speck that was me, and where an entirely different monster-girl was created, and then removed, both processes largely involving my dad. </p>
<p>And then my own babies were created and sheltered and protected in the very same place. It is so strange to think of the vast distinctions of purity and violation and beauty and devastation that have taken place all inside the tiny baby sack in my abdomen. My uterus is the Clermont Lounge of my body, and the time has come for demolition, and for removing the old, both good and bad, and creating space for something new. A new space that is just for me.</p>
<p>It reminds me of how it will never be impossible for me to see my mom's face in my mirror, or how it will never be possible to deny that my dad was the person who taught me how to read. My parents gave me ways to access the beauty in life. That is still the hardest part to understand, that my parents are people who gave me so much, but are the same people who withheld and took so much from me. They taught me how to live while simultaneously showing me how to die.</p>
<p>They were my greastest blessings and greatest enemies at the same time, kind of like how my uterus was a place for my beautiful children to become alive, but also was a place that held and protected that tiny innocent beast that was the beginning of my father's child.</p>
<p>I have to say that incest is one of the single most diabolical acts in this life. It is the greatest of all mindfuckers, and the most efficient producer of shame. It is devastation in a bottle, fed to humans who have no choice but to trust. The inability to distinguish love from hate is what hell is like, and a child knowing what hell is like before knowing what riding a bike is like is tragic.</p>
<p>Incest is a tragedy. The only thing I can imagine worse than being a victim of incest is being a perpetrator of incest. Actually, that is not true - being manipulated and forced to perpetrate incestuous acts on others is also worse than being the victim...maybe even worse than being the master instigator. Not being able to distinguish within one's own self the difference between being a victim and being a perpetrator is just as bad as not being able to distinguish the difference between love and hate in someone your existance relies on.</p>
<p>So profound today! </p>
<p>A few days ago, one of my doctors told me that I was a great healer for my family, and I asked her why she thought so, and she said that whoever is able to heal from something gains the ability to heal others. I liked that a lot, because it allowed me to recognize how significant my healing has been, and that it is time to move toward a new part of my life. </p>
<p>The part where I don't have a uterus.</p>
<p>P.S. attempts to demo the Clermont Lounge, to the best of my knowledge, have failed.</p>
</div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-24615206950808956492012-09-27T13:28:00.007-04:002012-09-27T13:28:59.789-04:00part 125, or "I guess it really is what it is"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">***Kind of a trigger warning. It triggered me, anyway***</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The first time I started this post was about two weeks ago. It
hurts very much. It’s really been bothering me – I’m very irritated that I
haven’t posted it yet. At this point, the only reason I am posting it is
because it might make me feel better about the whole situation. That has worked
with things I’ve written about before; it’s why I keep writing and posting on
this blog. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But this...fuck. It is ROUGH. I’m very much remembering how
I felt at the time this happened. I remember being in the front yard, stuck
because I wanted to go somewhere ELSE, but across the street is where I was
violently raped, and I was too scared to go there much anymore, even though
those boys that lived there – my best friends, the sons of the bastard that
raped me in theri basement - were what I needed at that time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I had stopped mid stride in the grass, with one foot
pointing across the street, but my face turned back to look at the big bay
window of the kitchen – where my mom did that to me – and I was so fucking
angry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was stuck.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I still know how that house smells, and that the ceilings
look like, and the size of the closet under the stairs, which was one of my
favorite places there. I remember what it was like to stand in the rooms, to
lay down on the couch and read for hours, to be so relieved to find no one home
after school, and I think again about her –my mom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why did she do that to me? Why?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Even if I feel like I cognitively understand why, my chest
hurts so bad, and my heart is breaking apart, and all I can do is stand there
frozen in the front yard and look back at the kitchen window, and my brain is
so overcome with pain that I can’t make sense of anything at all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It was the worst – what she did to me was the worst. After
all the things my dad did, and other people did, all of the torture and rape
and being the star of kiddie porn, what my mom did to me was the worst.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Before she did that to me, I at least had HER. I had some
anchor that I was only subconsciously aware of, a foundation for my sanity –
she’s my MOM. She’s my fucking MOM. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And in that moment, any inkling of security I had left was
ripped away from me, and I had absolutley no idea what to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Oh my god, it HURTS!!!! It hurts so bad, remembering what it
felt like to lose those last remnants of my sanity, and to feel it all float
away, and I remember what it felt like for all of it to float away, and from
then on, it was all just so blurry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It was just all a screamingly desperate attempt to not know
that she did that to me, and the anger really set in, and stayed there and
festered for the next fifteen years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I am posting this shit now. I’ve had a good cry, the
real kind, where everything in me feels like it is going to implode, and tears
flow out from eyes, and insteard of the anger and hatred, I just feel pain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here’s the original begining of this post:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Yesterday I had this thing where I vivdly relived the time
that my mom raped me. I actually had not even thought of it as rape until just
now. Even as I am writing the word, and knowing that what she did to me is, by
definition, rape, I keep double checking the reality of the concept.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What she did to me is very similar to what the rapist guy
did when I was fifteen on superbowl sunday. It took a lot of cognitive analysis
to finally recognize that as rape, and I can't deny now that what my mom did to
me was the same thing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Jesus. I don't like thinking about rape this early in the
morning. I especially don't like thinking about my mom raping me at all. I
suppose I really don't like thinking about rape at all, either, but my stomach
in the morning is so fragile. I mean, I am nauseous right now. It reminds me of
elementary school.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So anyway, I don't want to think about it, but it was a
really significant and intense experience yesterday, and I feel quite
compelled to write about it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It was one of those times that I really relived the
experience, except that I was still aware that I was here, today, and that
allowed me to respond to my mom now in a way I wasn't able to then. I even
talked out loud to her. Talking out loud in this remembering type of situation,
even when I know for certain that no one can hear me, is really scary for me. I
have such a fear of being overheard, or watched, or whatever. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I found out recently that people with avoidant personality
disorder have an extreme fear of anyone seeing them blushing, and I wonder if
this is the same type of fear I have about being overheard talking out loud to
people in my past memories. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So anyway, I felt good about being brave enough to talk to
that memory of my mom out loud. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">******</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I started this post three days ago. I'm scared to post it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom raped me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't even like thinking about it. Why would I write it in
a fucking blog? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am back to being afraid of what she might think or do if I
post it, and also being afraid of what my brother and sister might say.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not afraid in a concrete way - it is more like the girl
in my brain is afraid of being abandoned or ostrasized or shamed or ridiculed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I am not the same girl now, and I have already been
shamed and ridiculed and ostrasized and disowned, so what am I afraid of?
What's left to scare me? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It's the reality of it. If I say that my mom raped me, then
I have to think - did my mom rape me? Then I go back to all of the ways that
what my mom did to me constitutes rape. I keep running out of any other answer
than:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom raped me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-5556367510144982392012-09-10T22:36:00.004-04:002012-09-10T22:36:40.853-04:00part 124, or "accessories sold separately"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was just re-reading my last post, about my dad and evil,
and I realized that I had witnessed (and written about in my last post) my dad
before he was totally dead inside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I know that mental illness left untreated is usually a
gradual process to madness, but for some reason, I have only thought of my dad
as completely bad; completely evil; completely soulless. He wasn’t always like
that, though.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes there would be a light shining in him. It was
always very brief, and I remember feeling very uncomfortable by how vulnerable
he was allowing himself to be. It was like he was flashing his soft underbelly
in a world I believed was filled with daggers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It seemed as though he was incredibly awkward in a lot of
ways, socially speaking. He didn’t really have a good lead on what other people
thought was normal, and he would make inappropriate jokes and remarks, and then
look embarrassed and cease talking when no one laughed or otherwise validated
him. He only seemed confident and comfortable around people who were afraid or
in awe of him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">That is just one more thing I can completely relate with,
though. I guess me and my dad really were a lot alike. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My brother insists he is nothing like my dad – he’s
terrified of being my dad, which is silly, because half of his genetic makeup
is my dad, whether my brother wants to acknowledge that or not. It’s funny,
because I always felt my dad was terrified of becoming HIS dad – it’s why he
would insist on saying that he loved us every day, because his dad never said
that to him ever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad spoke less and less of his dad as years went by. I mean,
he hardly ever mentioned him at any time, but I do remember him bringing up his
dad when I was younger, and then not doing that as I got older. He would talk
about technical things concerning his dad, like what he did for work and stuff
like that. I don’t remember my dad ever really being emotional about his dad. Actually,
I don’t remember my dad ever being emotional about anything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I saw him cry once. It was when he and my mom reconciled
after their separation when I was in the 5<sup>th</sup> grade. They were in the
bed talking, and then they called the three of us into their room, and told us
that they weren’t going to get divorced, and we all climbed in the bed and
cried together. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I wasn’t shocked to see tears dripping down my dad’s cheeks,
but I was struck by how unusual it was, and I knew I had never seen him cry
before, and I don’t think I ever saw him cry since then. It was all very weird
and emotional, and I felt very much that our family was one unit, and that we
were each part of it, and that we were all working together for the best of us
all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">That was a fleeting moment, but it was real – it did happen.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not trying to say that sadistic sociopaths never cry, or
are incapable of crying – I know people can tear up and start crying on cue as
a means to manipulate other people. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I don’t think my dad was doing that the time I saw him
cry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">There were times, too, when he would look at me, at my face
and my eyes, and tell me how much he loved me, and that I was special to him,
and he would bear hug me, and I would feel happy and safe for a moment. I believe
in those tiny pieces of my childhood, that my dad really did love me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I really loved him, too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have this odd, off-kilter feeling about the role my dad
has played in my life, as far as the role of “my dad” goes. There were certain
expectations I had of him that would fit into the “normal dad” category. Sometimes
I would forget who he was, and who I was, and start to feel safe leaning on him
as “my dad.” It was a nice feeling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder if that is how it feels to have a dad who doesn’t
hurt you, and who wants to keep you safe. It seems like it would be so solid,
so comforting, to have that faith in a parent. I can’t imagine – I can’t
comprehend – what it would be like to feel that all the time, to never doubt
that it was real.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’ve written before about seeing other dads with their
daughters, and feeling puzzled and foreign and grateful and envious that these
daughters had dads who made them smile and laugh and feel safe. I have been recognizing
that I did have that feeling with my dad, as frail and eluding as it was. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Losing that feeling of safety hurt so bad – it was
devastating. It was ice picks through my gut, and cement in my lungs, but I was
a sucker for getting a taste of that feeling. I don’t think always, though. I denied
my dad my trust and confidence and faith regularly – turned my back when he was
trying to show me a nice part of him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But when I didn’t turn my back on him, those times when he
gave me the feeling that he was “my dad” were heavenly. For a moment, I believed
that I actually was like the little girls in commercials playing with Barbi
dolls and riding bikes and doing mischievous little girl things that dads acted
upset about, but actually really endeared them to their girls all the more. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Those girls were their dad’s girls. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Those dads looked at those girls and said, not matter what
was going on, “that’s my little girl. That’s my baby girl, my beautiful,
amazing baby girl, and I would gladly kill anyone who might have the gall to
hurt her.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At those times, I could see that my hair was smooth and
shiny and had cute bows or barrettes in it, and my clothes were so pretty, and
everything I wore matched perfectly with the bows and barrettes, and the lace
around the ankles of my socks would match, too. My room would be pink or
purple, and have matching curtains and comforter and pillow shams, and a bed
skirt, and – dream of all dreams – a canopy over the bed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I always imagined it would feel nice to sleep with a canopy
over me – not enclosing me or entrapping me, but just protecting me from the
world by shielding me with floating pastel banners.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But then “my dad” would just be my dad again, and it would
all crash down onto me again, get jerked away from me, and I would be ugly
again, with ugly clothes and ugly shoes and not one single pair of socks with
lace around the ankles, and not one single Barbi doll, which I didn’t want
anyway, because what fun were Barbi dolls if it was too freakishly weird to
introduce Barbi to Ken and make them have sex on that goddamn pink canopy bed?</span></div>
Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-86269235545554511042012-09-04T12:20:00.004-04:002012-09-09T00:41:40.055-04:00part 123, or "like a box of chocolates"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">(Note: I keep trying to re-read and polish this up for
publishing, but my brain keeps getting all soupy from the content; as far as it
making any sense, you're on your own)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad was a sadist. He loved to hurt people in innovative
ways. Actually, he loved to imagine hurting people in innovative ways. Once the
actual act of hurting someone became a part of the real world, during the time
he was doing the hurting, his mind retreated. Any part of him that was human
shrank back into an almost-oblivion as his body inflicted the pain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And then he would come back, and see and think about he had
done, and he would be horrified - but only for a second, maybe less. Once he
came back into his mind, the knowledge that he had hurt someone in such a
brutal way was the worst pain he had ever felt. It devastated him. So he only
kept it in his brain fleetingly, and would not have felt it at all, but he
didn't have a choice, because he was not completely dead inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The part of him that was not dead lived in a nightmare. It was
stuffed down so deeply inside of him, and coated all around with thick layers
of apathy. Most of the time he couldn't feel it, or have to think about it, but
it was still there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He hated it. He hated the part of him that would not die. I
don't think he started out hurting people so that he could kill what was alive
in himself, but that is what it eventually became. Each time he did something horrific,
the alive part of him would scream, and he would remember what it felt like to
feel. He would remember that he was not completely evil - there still resided a
bit of innocence in him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So he would try harder to prove to himself that he really
was completely evil. This is how things escalated, how his methods of torture
evolved. Initially, he simply loved how it felt to hurt someone (or something).
He had been hurt so much by people and places bigger than him, and the
realization that he could hurt things smaller than himself made him feel
strong. Like cocaine. It made him feel like he could take on everyone in the
world, and he truly believed that it would happen someday, and that he would not
be afraid of anyone, and everyone would be afraid of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I can relate to this. My big problem, though, is that I have not been able to kill nearly as much of my alive self as my dad. As a child, he had much more time left alone to harm other things - when he was a kid, from a very young age, he would wander
around, and to get the pain of isolation and rejection out of his mind and
body, he would search out creatures he could hurt. And then he would hurt them,
and he would feel better - or at least feel less, because he was killing a tiny
bit of his alive self with every act of pain inflicted on another being. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When he was young, he loved the thrill of it, and how the
thrill would completely shut out his own pain. But he began to get indifferent
to it - he was gaining a tolerance to the pain he inflicted on others, and it
wasn't working for him after a while, and he had to inflict more and more pain
on others in order to get rid of only a drop of his own pain. Like cocaine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">By the time I came around, he was still able to cancel out some
of his pain by hurting others, but when I was born, he gained a completely
defenseless being, completely within his power, to hurt. Game ON.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad, I believe, felt that he was abused because it was
part of the process of becoming "better than." I know he hated his
dad, and his brother, but could not comprehend that they would hurt him simply
for their own sadistic pleasures. I used to be very sure that my grandfather
thought he was god, too, or a prophet or something, and that he passed this on
to my dad. I think my grandfather was actually just completely nuts, but his indoctrination
in a religious cult is where he got his god-superiority from. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have tried to tie my grandfather's and father's failed
attempt to castrate me to something that makes some sort of sense, even if it
is a crazy sort of logic. But it's not logical at all. I thought of it as a
ritual, again part of the process to make me the next generation of
superiority. Maybe I have not been able to comprehend that my father and
grandfather would just do that to me simply for their own sadistic pleasure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My abuse has always been so heavily shrouded in religion
that I am only just now realizing that it may have all been just madness, that
religion and superiority may have been superficial normalizations for such
horrendous behavior, but that none of it ever actually clicked together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe I have been seeing the generational "superiority"
as my dad's motivation to hurt me because I can't comprehend that he was a
straight-up crazy dude who liked to do incredibly sick and damning things to
me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad really did eventually come to believe he was god. I don't
think it was all aimless madness - he definitely had a linear frame of mind,
albeit outside the realm of reality. But it was real to him - that's where his
shitty childhood and his being a cowardly little bitch drove him to. Being god
was the only conclusion that he found appropriate as an answer to all of the
shit he suffered, and to all of the shit he did to other people. I mean, only
non-human types of beings could have been the victim and predator of what my
dad experienced, and the only non-human beings he was taught existed were god
and satan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He saw everyone who tried to "get in his way" or
to "destroy" him as satan, so the only thing left for him to be was
god.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I really do think my dad's brainwashing me to think I was
some sort of godling is what ended up holding my mind together; it gave me
strength to not give in to killing myself, literally and figuratively. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Part of my parents' façade was the use of religion to hide
their evil. They had to do enough for me to appear as good parents. Except that
the good in my life was not a ruse to me; to me, it was real. Maybe that's why the
part of me that is alive hasn't been quieted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Regardless, my dad very gradually glided from the pain of
loss and rejection to the appearance of complete apathy. I don't know if he
succeeded in killing his alive self completely before his physical self died,
but if there was any of him left alive the last couple of times I saw him, I could
not see it. If there was any life left in him, it was the root of misery and
despair - he simply had no access to it, though he had no way of completely
extinguishing it. Just KNOWING, somewhere deep in his body and mind, that he
did have an element of recognizing that what he was doing was horrifically
evil, and any glimpse of the evil in himself was the embodiment of suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know how I know
these things about my dad. I just know that I do. I have had a very difficult
time resolving that my knowledge of evil is different from being evil. But as I
get more familiar with the person I really am, the more I am able to use my
knowledge of evil as a tool to make the world a better place. Or at least a
safer place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">That knowledge of evil, though, has come from hurting others
- the things I have done to other people (granted, primarily at the behest and coercion
of my dad), are tremendously difficult to live with. I guess I am fortunate
that I have figured out a way to live with it without indulging myself in it as
a means of becoming numb to my own pain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I guess I'm just lucky that way.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-78499891597995929912012-08-29T09:59:00.001-04:002012-08-30T16:01:34.909-04:00part 122, or "reality bites"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">***TRIGGER ALERT***</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. It was just a
routine thing, but it was with a new doctor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t like going to the doctor – any doctor - but one of
the things I have been learning to do is take better care of myself, and that
means going to the doctor for routine stuff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I was not at all expecting to experience a doctor’s
appointment like the one I ended up having yesterday. I was expecting routine
questions and routine answers and routine tests and routine results. But this
wasn’t a routine doctor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">After she learned some of my history, she started asking
questions I wasn’t really sure how to answer…wait, let me back it up. I was
there for my routine checkup, but also for a consult about a tubal ligation. She
asked me why I was afraid of becoming pregnant – not why I did not want to have
any more kids, but why I was AFRAID OF BECOMING PREGNANT.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I told her about my dad, and the abortion when I was 15 that
was the result of his raping me. I told her I hadn’t started remembering things
about the rapes and abortion until after my second child was born, and that the
idea of being pregnant again terrified me because I felt like I would have to
remember how it felt to be pregnant with my father’s child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She asked me what I had felt when my dad raped me. I literally
did not understand the question. I kept trying to specify whether or not she
was asking me how I felt psychologically or physically, and she kept saying she
just wanted to know how it felt.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I hadn’t really thought of that in any cognitively
processing kind of way before. How DID it feel when my dad was raping me? When
he forced himself onto me and into me, and injected me with himself, and it
mixed with myself, and a whole new entity that was the combination of me and my
dad was created in my body?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I couldn’t answer the question – I still really couldn’t
understand the question. Whenever I tried to think of how that felt, when he
was doing that to me, I just shut down. My brain automatically threw up a line
and designated it as the line to never cross, and when I faced the possibility
of crossing it anyway, I just wanted to throw up or lie down on the floor and
go to sleep or leave there and go to the nearest bar and get shit faced.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But she insisted I cross that line, even after I told her my
brain shut down. She said that shutting down was not allowed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And so I thought about it, what it felt like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It felt awful. It felt heavy, and it felt like getting
ripped open, and it stung. And it felt shocking – even though he had been doing
it since before I could even really remember, every time he did it again, I was
shocked that it was happening. I wouldn’t stay there – I would leave into my
mind when he was doing it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes he would talk to me when he was raping me, and it
was harder for me to stay inside my mind. He would ask me questions about how
it felt. He would tell me I was such a good daughter for going along with it –
that it was the hardest part of being a daughter, but I was such a good
daughter for doing it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He would tell me what he was feeling, what he was doing – he
would describe it to me, and say that was how men worked, it was what men did,
and I couldn’t understand that unless he showed me because I would never be a
man. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He was teaching me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He was punishing me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He was dominating me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He was hurting me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He was showing me the only thing my body would ever be
worth, that the only reason I had a heart beating inside of me was to fuel that
body for him to use, and that the only reason I had two legs was so that I could
open them up for him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He injected me with himself, and when I found out I was
pregnant, I was horrified at what kind of monster I carried in my body – what kind
of monster the combination of him and me made.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I knew he was a monster, and I knew that I was a monster,
too – at my core, that was who I was. Just like him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And no combination of monster and monster could be anything
other than a super monstrous monster. Would this baby monster get born and grow
up and hurt people and kill people and torture people? Would it hurt me and
torture me and kill me?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I worried that he would not pay for an abortion, that he
would not be willing to destroy such an opportunity – the opportunity of having
a concentrated version of his flesh and blood walking around, made purer
because I was also his flesh and blood walking around, and I was the other half
of this new flesh and blood.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">He didn’t try to stop me. He didn’t refuse to pay for the
abortion and he did not refuse to take me there to have it done. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What he did refuse to do was acknowledge that he had done
this to me. It seemed like it never actually hit his reality that I was
pregnant with a monster that he had put inside of me – he told me I was a slut,
and from that I knew he was saying to me that someone else got me pregnant –
there was no acknowledgment whatsoever that he knew he did that to me. That is
what got me mad- really mad. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to reach in a take that tiny monster out with my
own hands, but I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t
reach, and I didn’t know how it worked, and I was so, so scared. I punched it
over and over, but I knew that wouldn’t work, and I had to tell him because he
was the only one who could help me get rid of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And he did.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I was pregnant with my own children, my brain didn’t
know what it had felt like that time I was pregnant with the monster. But my
body did. When I was pregnant with my own kids, I started throwing up the
moment I found out I was pregnant, and didn’t stop until my own little babies
were out of me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am grateful that I was able to have my own babies growing
inside me without having to remember what it felt like having that tiny monster
growing inside of me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But now this doctor asked me what it felt like. I couldn’t
hardly find words. I cried. She cried, too. She hugged me over and over again,
and told me that my uterus was a beautiful part of my body, and that she did
not recommend a tubal ligation because I had a condition that could be treated
with a hysterectomy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I hadn’t known all of the pain there had been from anything
other than my own body’s memories – learning that there is actually something
wrong with my uterus – and that it can be fixed by taking it out – was not
something I had at all expected. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I also did not expect for a doctor to tell me that it was
not an urgent procedure at this time, and that she did not want to do the
surgery while I believed that getting rid of my uterus would mean getting rid
of something bad – I told her that if I had never had a uterus, I would not
have been raped over and over and sold to men I had never met before, and sold
to men I lived across the street from and next door to, and I never would have
had to be a good daughter to my dad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I realized I hate my uterus, I hate that I was a girl then,
and not a boy, because I would not have been hurt that way if I had been a boy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And I hadn’t realized all of this until that doctor tipped
my brain over and asked me what I felt when my dad was raping me, and what I imagined
I would feel if I were to get pregnant again today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She said she wanted me to work out that I didn’t need to
have my uterus removed because it would make it easier for me to not have it in
my body. If I needed to have it removed only because of a physical condition,
then it could be done. But she didn’t want to do it when it was still a part of
my body that I hated.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">A lot to think about…and I wasn’t expecting any of that at
all.</span></div>
Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-30677745591505912412012-08-20T09:00:00.000-04:002012-08-20T09:01:26.842-04:00part 121, or "getting my nails done is not crazy"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Wanting to violently hurt someone else, to me, is pretty
crazy. Not “weird” or “astounding” crazy, but CRAZY crazy, and I have always
been terrified of being that kind of crazy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’ve lived my entire life not knowing if I was crazy or not.
Its just in the past couple of years that I’ve gotten firm footing when it
comes to how I view my mental state. I have done so many tests on myself,
studying my own behavior and thoughts in reference to whatever is (or is not)
going on around me at any given time. I’ve researched my sanity exhaustively,
and it’s getting boring, because I’m not crazy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, maybe a little bit crazy. I guess it depends on how I define
“crazy.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here is what I think a crazy person looks like:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Wild hair, no make-up, eyes that are always seeing something
terrifying (real or imagined), wearing jammies all day (even in public), and
wandering helplessly lost through the library or grocery store or on the
street, even when they have lived there for the past thirty years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Crazy looks like someone who knows something, but can’t
remember that they know it. Confused, bitchy, unpredictable, and inappropriate.
If someone is standing in a store staring at the same thing without moving for
ten minutes, that looks like crazy. If that someone is wearing jammies and has
greasy, unwashed hair, and bits of polish on their nails left after they picked
the rest of it off, then that person looks certifiably insane.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">All of my ideas about what crazy looks like are rooted in my
own behavior – I don’t know if I think I’m crazy because I have looked and
acted that way, or if looking and acting that way is what defines me as crazy.
Regardless, I cannot deny at least the appearance of what I feel defines crazy,
at least some of the time, in my life. In fact, I go around picking my nail
polish off all the time, even though when I see someone who is obviously mentally
ill, and they have mostly-picked-off nail polish, I say, “note to self: stop
picking off nail polish; it makes you look crazy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I guess recognizing the crazy in other people has allowed me
to be more accepting of myself, and of my illness, and of what it means to be
ill this way. The other day I walked out of a store with all of my newly
purchased items falling out through a hole in the bottom of the bag, and I was
completely oblivious to it, and another customer had to run out after me to
stop me, and the girl who worked there picked up all of my stuff after me and
brought it to me at my car, and I smiled and said, “thank you,” and she said, “there’s
a hole in the bag, do you want me to get you another,” and I said, “no, that’s
okay, I will just carry it holding the bottom instead of by the handles,” and
she stared at me strangely, and for some (crazy) reason I thought she meant
that the bag was ABOUT to break, and the items she picked up after me were
things accidentally left out of the bag at checkout, and I didn’t put it all
together until after I started unpacking the bag when I got home and saw there
was a big hole in the bottom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And then I thought to myself, “wow – I was acting really
crazy in that store.” And then I though to myself, “eh, don’t be so hard on
yourself – if you were acting crazy, it was because you kind of are a little
bit, but only the kind of crazy that comes from what you’ve been through, and
not the scary kind of crazy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Scary crazy is when someone knows what is going to happen in
the future, who believes they have special powers, and who has unfailing confidence
in everything they do, because they already know they are going to end up the
victor at the end of it all. That was who my dad was, and his dad, and probably
my brother. That’s the crazy I am terrified of being – it’s the crazy I’ve been
battling all along.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I get confused between what hope feels like, and believing I
absolutely know everything will turn out well in the end because I am a
superior being. I guess it’s the difference between taking care of myself and
waiting for myself to get taken care of. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Even by my own admission – and something I have been saying
for years - I was always waiting for men in white jackets to come and take me
away. I would say, “I’ve always been expecting men in white jackets to come and
take me away, but they never did, so I finally had to send myself to the mental
hospital, ha ha ha” (for some reason, I always found this funny, but now I’m
not remembering why…).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Seeing and accepting
the damage that has been done to me has helped me learn to take care of myself
instead of waiting to be taken care of. It’s kind of paradoxical, because it
would seem that seeing and accepting the damage to my mind and body would
reinforce that I am a victim. But I am figuring out that the difference between
being a victim and being a survivor lies in my ability to stop looking around
for people to come make things better so I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain
myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What happened to me was not fair; it was not right; it was
not okay; it was not my fault. And it HURTS – beyond what I imagine the depths
of hell feel like, even if I don’t believe there is a hell (not outside of life
on earth, anyway).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But not accepting the pain, and staving it off until someone
comes along and makes it go away (aka, “denial”), means that it is impossible
to be anything other than a victim. I can’t accept help from other people if I can’t
acknowledge what I need help with. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I have spent my entire life building a façade that says I
am brilliant, I am beautiful, I am special, and I am thereby entitled to have
my pain taken from me so that I can be left to bask unfettered in the glory
that is me. I have stood by that façade, and sworn that it was real, and fought
to defend it at all cost. I have put a lot of time and energy and effort and
pride into maintaining that façade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But it is still a façade. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I mean, yeah, I’m smart, but I’m not Einstein, and yeah, I’m
pretty, but I’m not a super model. And yeah, I have a lot of really nice
qualities that are valued by society, but not to the extent that I outshine
everyone else and am entitled to have effortlessly what everyone else must work
for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">A huge part of my struggles have concerned the fact that I haven’t
ever gotten what I believed I was entitled to. My greatness has never been
cosmically acknowledged by money or power or fame, and those are the essential components
to proving my greatness to the world. Closing in on 40 years old, not having
that proof really sucks – I mean, if I am not powerful and famous and rich by
now, wouldn’t that mean that my greatness isn’t so great?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Um…yeah, probably.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But now I am falling in love with humanity, and with being
human, and it feels so much better than fruitlessly touting greatness I do not
possess. It feels sane. It feels real, and it feels safe. It’s really a pretty
nice way to feel.</span></div>
Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-5952596968582056462012-07-29T11:44:00.003-04:002012-07-29T17:40:22.278-04:00part 120, or "seriously? i STILL live here?"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">DISCLAIMER: I DON’T EVEN OWN A GUN, AND EVEN IF I DID, I
HAVE NO DESIRE TO ACTUALLY KILL OR HURT ANYONE, INCLUDING MYSELF AND THE PEOPLE
WHO RAPED ME.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I had an “episode” last week that really scared me. I was
trying to accept that I might never be able to leave this shitty town. The
reason I was doing that is because if I can imagine the worst possible scenario
and determine if I can live with it, then all the other possible scenarios are
much less frightening.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The bad thing was that, this time, I was considering the
idea that I cannot live with the worst possible scenario, and my mind just kind
of took some loops and twirls, and I didn’t (or couldn’t) say anything for over
an hour. I was out with Jonny when it happened, and I am really glad he was
with me, because I don’t know if I would have been able to get myself home in
that state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">All I could do was just sit there and cry. Not the wracking,
heaving, gut-wrenching crying, but the kind where my face stays blank and the
tears simply fall from my eyes like drops of water leaking from a sink. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was stuck in this mode of trying to reconcile how I would
be able to stay in this town, and the only thing I could come up with was
getting a gun and killing my mom and her rapist, pedophiliac, enabling
neighbors. That was the only solution I could come up with that made me feel
calmer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It was a lot like right before I went into the hospital
(almost exactly five years ago! Time flies when you’re painstakingly reconstructing
your own sense of reality), when all I could do to keep my mind from breaking
completely was plan how I was going to kill my dad. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I started out writing about killing my dad – this was also
when I was still drinking (a LOT), and I would journal the graphic details of
what my dad’s blood would look like spreading in a puddle around his head after
I bashed his skull in with a baseball bat. It is a very fuzzy time, and I have
never re-read those journals, but I do remember focusing on the stain his blood
would leave on my cement driveway, and how it would have to be pressure-washed
to get rid of it, and how I was never going to pressure-wash it because I
wanted it to help me remember he was gone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This obsessing about how I was going to kill my dad went on
and on and on, and eventually grew into a solid plan to kill my dad, and I
couldn’t help from actually planning to do it, because it was the only way my
mind would stop screaming. I mean, I was really, really drunk most of that time
period, but alcohol is no match for the screaming my mind can dole out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So I kept obsessing and planning to go kill my dad. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I feel very fortunate that I was able to go to the hospital
instead of actually killing my dad, and he ended up kicking his own self off a
few years after that when his evil heart exploded. I am truly grateful that I have
a pic of my dead dad to remind me he is gone, instead of a blood stain on my
driveway…and hatch marks on my prison cell wall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Needless to say, the obsessing about killing my dad was
ongoing and very intense and very real to me. This “episode” I experienced last
week, however, only lasted about an hour, and then I went into my
super-stressed-out-sleep mode, and when I woke up, I felt better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The thing about this “episode” last week is that my brain
did not stay fixated on how I was going to kill these assholes, and how
peaceful it would feel once they were dead. My mind kept going back to my
husband and my kids, and how shitty it would be if I went on a murder spree to
make myself feel better, and then left them behind in the wake of madness and
violence. Seriously – that would be a tremendously shitty thing for me to do,
as a mom, a partner, and a person.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So I never got to the point in this latest episode when
killing people was going to become a real thing for me – it stayed on the side
of fantasy, and the reason I was just dripping tears out the whole time was
because the rest of me remained in reality, thinking about how shitty it would
be to bail on my husband and my kids by getting sent to prison for however
long.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I didn’t recognize this until after I had my
stress-overload-relief nap, when my head was cleared up again. When I did
realize it, I felt a lot more confident (and relief) in my ability to reason in
a manner that is most conducive to my own health, and to the welfare of my
husband and kids.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">With my dad, I didn’t have that. At all. Hence, the mental
hospital, and the awesomeness of him dying on his own without my interference.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Side note: I had a hard time deciding whether or not I would
even write about this – I mean, the shit’s crazy. End side note.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I look back at the things that have changed, and the factors
in my life that are very different now than when I went in the hospital, and I
realized that I am probably going to be dealing with the effects of my
experiences for the rest of my life, but that those experiences can’t dictate
my actions any more, as long as I keep working to find a place I can feel safe,
physically and mentally.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have reached a point where I am afraid I can no longer compensate
for my fears associated with this town. I have maintained a kind of plateau for
a while, where I have been able to work at getting my feet on the ground while
using coping techniques I learned in the hospital and in therapy and from other
people, but I have run out of time trying to move forward in my recovery while
still being here, where it all happened.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This trapped feeling is not good. When I am trapped, I check
out in my mind – I dissociate. Completely. The scariest part of completely
dissociating is that my body keeps on functioning separately from my brain, and
I am so scared of whatever evil is still a part of me would do if I have no way
of defending myself (or anyone else) against it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">That has always been one of my biggest fears, and I do get
kind of nervous about it still – about the idea that I could just snap and do
all kinds of weird and fucked up shit to all kinds of people without being
consciously aware of what was happening. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The thing is, I’ve never attacked anyone or stolen anything
or walked off a cliff or wandered down the street completely naked, while in a
complete state of dissociation. These are things I have always been worried
that I would do, but I haven’t done them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Most of my dissociative states are not so completely removed
from what is happening around me than an actual complete dissociative state. I am
usually still with myself, though there are varying degrees of the level of
being “present” at those times. I don’t know of a time when I was dealing with
something life-threatening while completely dissociated.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My typical states of complete dissociation involve my simply
spacing out – this actually happens a lot, but not for any extended amount of
time (maybe ten minutes, at most). If I am driving, I will keep driving on
autopilot, and just keep going and going until I snap out of it. This typically
happens when I am on the interstate, or great lengths of highways or roads that
don’t have any stop signs or traffic lights. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Stop signs and traffic lights, for some reason, usually bring
me right back, but I have to look all around me and figure out where I am. This
is not such a problem when I stay in areas I am VERY familiar with. At worst, I
will come to a stop sign or traffic light, and have some sense that I am
supposed to turn or something, and I can’t remember if I’ve already turned or
not while I was totally zoned, and then I have to remember where it is that I am
going, and I can “re-route,” just like the GPS on my phone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The GPS on my phone is SO much better at re-routing, though,
so I use it a lot when I am traveling more than a few miles from home, or to
places I haven’t driven to hundreds of times.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, total dissociation episodes have typically involved
things like sideswiping mailboxes, and coming to in the middle of a
conversation and I have no idea what I’ve been talking about (once I was
actually screaming at a group of my friends – scary), or I find myself putting
a box of cereal in the refrigerator or throwing out real dishes and other
things that are not trash.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I haven’t ever had a complete state of dissociation in which
I snapped and started killing people. Even planning to kill my dad involved
part of my conscious, present mind, which is why I was able to go to the
hospital instead of going to actually kill him. That was a close one, though.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I think what happened when I had my “episode” last week was
that I felt completely trapped, and tried to go back to my previous methods of
dealing with it in my mind. While it was really nice to imagine that all of
these horrendous people were dead, I felt much more burdened by the idea that I
would have to kill them myself in order to achieve that. Thinking about killing
them myself – as an independent thought – is not terribly disturbing – I am
pretty sure that this is something that all people think about sometimes. When it
gets entangled in my feeling trapped, though, it starts to feel more like a
necessity of survival, and that’s when it gets kind of fucked up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t know – I have been surviving in this shit hole for
my whole life. While the idea of having to remain here forever is devastating, I
know I can survive being here. It’s just what I do. I survive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I want so much to LIVE, though, and that just isn’t going to
happen in this town.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-4676168527223199582012-07-18T16:41:00.001-04:002012-07-19T00:09:24.507-04:00part 119, or "is it real to anyone else yet?"<span style="font-size: large;">***TRIGGER ALERT***</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have corroborating evidence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The pedophile next door to my childhood home also abused his
own daughter. He has two daughters, but I only saw him abuse one. He demonstrated
what he wanted to do to me on his youngest daughter, to show me that it was
normal and okay. It was a very effective strategy. Except now I am a grown-up
and remember shit, and now his daughter is a grown-up, too. I don’t know
whether or not she remembers shit, but I was not that skeevy perve’s only
victim. What he did to her corroborates my account of what he did to me. I also
find it hard to believe that his wife had no knowledge or suspicions about him
and what he did to little girls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The pedophile diagonally to my childhood home also abused
other people. He was even arrested for it years and years ago, but I don’t
think any charges were filed, because I can’t dig up any records about that
arrest. Regardless, these other victims do remember what happened to them, and
their stories can corroborate my account of what that particular dirty old man
did to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">After that sick fuck across the street raped me (the first
time), his wife was standing right there when I came up out of the basement and
ran home. She saw me. She saw him. She knew what happened then, and she still
knows it now. That corroborates what her husband did to me. I’m pretty sure my
sister knows about this time, too – she was at home when I ran in the house,
and she knew something was wrong, and I don’t remember anything else about her
being there except that she had the most disgusted look on her face and I felt
very dirty and shameful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">One of the things my dad and grandpa (his dad) did to me
when I was about four or five was attempt to do a “female circumcision” on me.
It was somehow related to their completely fucked beliefs/delusions about their
cult/religion – I remember it being explained to me in a way I was supposed to
accept as being “good” for me. They used wire snippers and they did cut me, but
I was moving around a lot (because it hurt SO BAD!!!), and there was A LOT of
blood, and they didn’t get to remove the organ they wanted to. They did leave a
deep cut, though, and I have a scar from it. Only my husband and I have seen
it, but still – it corroborates my account of what they did to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> My brother walked in
the time my mom was sexually assaulting me as my dad looked on – we were in the
kitchen, for christ’s sake. My brother swears he remembers nothing of this, but
at the time he new something fucked up was going on, and insisted someone tell
him what it was. When I alluded to what had actually happened, he told me I was
very sick and his face looked very disgusted like that time my sister saw me
after I was raped by the guy across the street. That corroborates my account of
what my mom and dad did to me. That night was one of the times I cried and
cried and cried, silently, until I wasn’t awake anymore, and in the morning the
muscles in my back and abdomen were sore from all of the yelling I did in my
head.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I also have reams of documentation about my psychological
state – I’ve been evaluated many times over the years. (I was actually finally
just formally diagnosed with a personality disorder – Avoidant Personality
Disorder. Avoidant? Duh.) None of these evaluations mention or suggest that I have
experienced or experience any delusions or hallucinations, and none of them
mention or suggest that I am in any way not truthful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And then there are the memories themselves – “recovered
memories.” I remember the things that happened because I WAS THERE. I was a witness. I can
provide more witness testimony-type of evidence than anyone would know what to
do with. All I would have to do is say out loud what happened to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m sure there is more corroborating evidence that I have
not thought to mention right now, but everything I’ve said in this blog post
alone should be enough to open a formal investigation into these crimes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Shouldn’t it? I mean, it should, right? I really do think it
should. But it is hasn’t been enough, not up to this point, anyway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Who knows? Maybe the shifting tides concerning victim
testimony based on recovered memories will change something about my situation.
Maybe the newly public acknowledgement that this shit DOES happen to kids every
fucking day will change things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath. </span></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-84624003438787116012012-07-18T01:31:00.000-04:002012-07-18T15:56:27.863-04:00part 118, or "stir it up, little darlin"<span style="font-size: large;">There is a website that is basically a database of information about recovered memories. It's called The <a href="http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/" target="_blank">Recovered Memory Project</a>. I have it bookmarked, and about twice a year I look at it to see what's new. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What's new right now is judgments against offenders based on the recovered memories of their victims, 20 to 30 years after the crimes occurred. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">One of the things people ask me repeatedly over the years is why I haven't reported the crimes committed against me when I was a kid. The answer is that I have reported those crimes, in person, to several local law enforcement agencies in several jurisdictions (including one out of the state of Georgia), the GBI, the FBI, two district attorneys, a number of police officers, and one superior court judge - in open court.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Some of them have investigated what I told them about things I witnessed my dad doing to other people, although as of yet, those cases have not gone anywhere. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">None of them - not one single one - ever investigated any of the crimes committed against me. Well, not that I am aware of, anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There is a pedophile, a sadistic rapist, and a deranged evil bitch living less than a mile from me, and despite the information I have (quite publicly) been putting out there over the last two years in this blog, nothing has ever been done about that. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The one thing I've heard several times is that because it happened so long ago, and there is little corroborating evidence, a serious and legitimate and valid investigation would not take place.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I've always truly believed that if I was able to testify in front of a jury about what these fucking pieces of shit did to me that I would be believed. The reason I believe this is because 1) it is the truth, and 2) my abusers are so clearly guilty in every mannerism they make and in every word they say that it would be impossible for any of them to provide any argument against me that anyone else might believe.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So I checked out the Recovered Memory Project a few minutes ago, and guess what? Abusers are being ruled against in civil actions based on the recovered memories of their victims. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I've always thought that what I said happened to me amounted to some sort of evidence. I mean, "he-said, she-said" arguments are meant for a jury (or a judge) to decide, but those arguments don't ever get to a jury or a judge because even the local fucking police department won't do a thing to initiate any sort of real investigation into these people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I mean, come ON. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't have faith in cops, or in the law, or in the idea of "justice." I am too tired to keep trying to convince skeptical - and often mean - people with the power to do something that I am not crazy, AND that what happened to me was bad enough and IMPORTANT enough to warrant some sort of action on the part of law enforcement.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But this whole thing with the Sandusky case, and the guy who was acquitted of beating the shit out of a priest who molested him years before, and now these cases where the only evidence is the accounts of the victims and their recovered memories - that is something. I don't know what it is, but it really is something.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As much as I would love to trust anything will EVER happen to those sick fucks, I do not believe it will ever happen. But maybe, MAYBE, the current and former residents of my childhood home, and all of the current and former neighbors of my childhood home, might - MIGHT - be shitting themselves NOW, at least a little bit, at these recent developments in our society.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Because if I have the opportunity to realistically pursue legal action (civil or criminal) against anyone who ever touched me when I was a kid - or against anyone who didn't stop someone else from touching me when I was a kid - I am DEFINITELY taking the fuckers down.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm all out of fight to go at it alone, but the first chance anyone involved in the law backs me up, I am DEFINITELY taking the fuckers down.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In the mean time, I'm okay hoping they are losing sleep and pissing themselves night and day from the fear of how REALISTICALLY they can be exposed and prosecuted for what they did to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Fucking piece of shit animals - I will probably fall asleep tonight fantasizing about spitting in each and every one of their faces. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Because I mean, SERIOUSLY - this shit is SO FUCKED UP.</span>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-58052668779263234442012-06-30T23:55:00.001-04:002012-06-30T23:55:09.051-04:00part 117, or "stay gold, ponyboy"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes it just hurts so bad. It’s not an ache, or
anything sharp, it’s just hurting. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I watched the movie Matilda today. I had never seen it
before. It was just like me. Except Matilda had a much better head on her
shoulders than I ever did as a child. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She looks just like my niece (the girl who plays Matilda). So
does Suri Cruise. So do <st1:place w:st="on">I.</st1:place> I miss her, really a
lot. Its one of the bad things that come from making a decision like I did – I had
a lot of really bad family, but they weren’t all bad, or even bad all the time.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I miss moments, like my mom and my sister and I all
laughing. It is true I never felt completely comfortable around either one of
them, and they seemed to sort of fuse together when we were all there, so that I
still felt on the outside. And I know that my sister thinks I’m crazy or
whatever, and that I’ve done horrible things to my mom and our family – and to
her, and her girls. And I know that it’s better this way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But as much as I remember hating and resenting and fearing
my sister, I just miss her, too. Not so much my brother – it will probably take
more than a year of not having anything to do with him before I start to miss
him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I wish they would believe me. I know that it is not the way
things really are, but I wish so much that they could see me like who I am, and
not like the picture that my parents always painted of me. There was A LOT of
fighting, too – yelling and screaming and pulling hair and taking each other’s
things – all three of us (my sister and brother and I) were awful to each
other, and as much as I have felt my shame in all of that slipping away, I remember
even more of how they treated me, too. It wasn’t just all me – and I feel like I
should be mad and resentful towards them, but it is really just more hurting
right now than any of that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We were all in it together. I may have been hurt more, or
exposed to more, or hated more, but all three of us were in it together. At least
when we were really little. I remember that my dad would leave us in the van
for long periods of time while he went into whatever building we were at so he
could do whatever it was he was doing, and I don’t know how we did not kill
each other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I remember being isolated with them a lot – with my brother
and sister – but I don’t remember ever fighting with either of them when were
all left on our own in the same place, on the same level, by the same dad and
the same mom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I really, seriously do not ever remember getting along with
them very well, either. Maybe I have just gotten to the point where I am
remembering what it felt like to be attached to them on a primal level, as
siblings. As people who had to get along because we would die if we didn’t.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We were hurt a lot together. I wonder if they remember any
of that. I don’t think they do, but it seems like just being one year younger
than me, my sister’s memories wouldn’t be too different from mine. I don’t know
what the hell my brother’s memories are of – he probably has a mix of exultation
and misery. Actually, I think all three of us share that. I was just more
familiar with my sister’s exultation and misery because her exultation was
almost always at my expense, and when she was miserable, it was okay because
then she was being the bad kid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">One time my dad told her he was going to take her to the
hospital to get the whine cut out. We all believed him. She would get rather
terrified, and by then I would have kicked in to protective mode and tried to
get her to just stop so they didn’t cut her throat open and remove the whine
from her body. I wonder if either of them – my brother or my sister – remember how
much I loved them and wanted to protect them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe they just remember me being mean and a bully, but they
didn’t understand the things that could happen to them like I did.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I remember being very protective of them, especially
when we were really little, like all under the age of 7. Bad things happened to
all of us, but I don’t think they remember much of that, if anything at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I think I am totally okay with them not remembering, and
with being the one who got hurt the most, because imagining them having to live
through what I’ve lived through, and go through what I’ve gone through just to
keep living some more, it scared the ever-lovin-shit out of me. Their fear
terrifies me – it always has.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I made my brother and sister mad a lot. I beat up on my
brother a lot, and told my sister what to do a lot. But I could never handle
seeing terror on their faces.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The idea of being separated from them used to scare the shit
out of me, too. Not because I wanted to be around them, but because they needed
me to protect them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And then we were just all awful to each other, more and more
as we got older. I do wonder if they will ever understand what I went through
to keep them as safe as I could, when even I didn’t understand what I was
doing. I hated it when my dad paid any attention to them, and I always whined
and was obnoxious when he was paying attention to them and not to me. It wasn’t
that I wanted his attention so much as it was knowing his attention on them put
them in danger.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Jesus fucking christ – that man was an evil, sick, SICK
bastard, and I don’t know if my sister and brother are even aware of just how
sick and evil he was, even now after so much shit has come out in the open
about him. I don’t think they could really know what I know about him, and
about all the things that he could have done to them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I suppose that would have been one more very deeply
entrenched reason I was always so hateful and resentful toward them as we got
older. They didn’t know what I had to go through, and they had no idea how much
I truly believed I was taking on to keep it from happening to them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Whatever. I’m tired of thinking about it. I just stopped
crying, too, so no proof-reading on this one, I’m just going to post it; please
forgive typos and disjointed thoughts or words.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It just hurts so fucking bad sometimes.</span></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-91608212603596050142012-06-25T00:24:00.001-04:002012-06-25T00:24:24.862-04:00part 116, or "bangin on fools"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So I'm kind of embarrassed about my post, "mother
fucking fuck fuck, revisited" (<a href="http://puttingitallouthere.blogspot.com/2012/06/part-114-or-motherfucking-fuck-fuck.html" target="_blank">part 114</a>). I knew I was throwing a hissy
fit when I was writing it, and I knew I might regret posting it, but at the
time I was very much feeling what I was writing, so I was like "fuck
it." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I actually even considered taking that post down. I don't
think I come across as very sane and reasonable person, either, and that is I guess
why I am embarrassed about it - that and the note of desperation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So there was this one critique of my book that said the main
character was someone waiting to be rescued; I find that kind of derogatory
toward the character (or anyone who is sitting around, waiting to be rescued),
but it is not inaccurate. I got to go to art school for one quarter about 15
years ago (and I LOVED it), and one of the teachers said I reminded her of
Blance Deveroux, always relying on the kindness of strangers. And then I was at
therapy today, and we were talking about how that blog post (<a href="http://puttingitallouthere.blogspot.com/2012/06/part-114-or-motherfucking-fuck-fuck.html" target="_blank">part 114</a>) was a
very literal expression of how frustrating - and futile - it can be waiting for
someone to rescue you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So am I someone who is waiting to be rescued? I mean, I feel
like that rings pretty true in some ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I was writing that post, I wrote about wanting someone
to see the value in me and recognize that I could make them a lot of money
(you, know, because of how boring I'm not), and buy my book and give me enough
money to get the fuck out of this shit-hole town. As I wrote those words about
seeing the value in me, I felt like I sounded pathetic, like a child trying to
get their parents' favor (hmmm, I wonder
where that analogy came from), but failing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I posted it anyway, and now I'm kind of embarrassed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">However, I feel very good at the fact that I have been
putting all of ME out there - every unattractive quality - without ruminating
too much. Because as much as it would be super-fucking-awesome for someone to
come along and say, "hey I want to buy your book for the exact amount it
will take you to get out of this shithole town, and also I was thinking maybe I
could give you a substantial advance on your next book," it's not what
this is about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What this IS about is what is REAL, and REAL is not necessarily
an attractive shade on me all the time, so….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The whole rescuing thing, and that last post, and how it all
alludes to my state of mind since I was a child has been a lot to think about. I
really do feel that someone "waiting to be rescued" is weak. I'm not
sure where I get that from. I mean "waiting to be rescued" could also
be seen as incredibly resilient and filled with unwavering tenacity and faith. Whatever,
I've been analyzing it all day and it's getting old. My conclusion is that
yeah, it is definitely something that can be applied to me, and I am going to
decline to make a final determination on whether or not is an admirable trait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">On a completely different note…um, I TOTALLY outed my mom
yesterday. I've been very strongly alluding to what she has specifically done
to me, but yesterday was the first time I full out said it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It SUH-UH-UH-KED. It was terrifying. It launched me into a
dissociative state that I haven't experienced in a long time. I have been
reliving that time, when I was 14, when she did that to me. I've been reliving
the next door neighbor molesting me when I was 5. I've been reliving looking
into the eyes of the sadistic rapist across the street when he was trying to
kill me (which really actually was much scarier than all those times my dad
tried to kill me…I mean, if there a scale of fear on that level).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been imagining my brother showing up at my house and
yelling at me and telling me what a horrible and disloyal and evil little bitch
I am, and how I am exactly like our father, and how he is so disgusted that
he's never going to have anything to do with me again, but he's still going to
make me pay for this horrible injustice against our mother. I've been imagining
my sister doing kind of the same thing, but in a really controlled and calm
way, and without using any bad words, and telling me that she will be praying
for my mortal soul. They probably also would both reference the bible or god or
whatever, and spear me through the chest with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">You know what is so awesome? I don't believe in that bible
or that god, and they can spear me with whatever they want, because I can take
pretend spears to the chest all day long. Bitch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At therapy today, my therapist said we could do some things
to help me grounded again, and I told her I did not want to be grounded, that I
was very comfortable in the dissociated state I was in. It was kind of weird
being that aware of being that dissociated, but it still felt like nothing at
all, and particularly not like the consequences of outing my mom about the
sexual abuse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am coming out of it now, though, and I am finding I don't
feel very scared. One of the things I've been most surprised about is how
scared I am of my brother coming down here and confronting me. My sister would
be almost as scary as that. I haven't been so concerned about my mom showing
up, but if she did, it would be a straight-to-911 situation, because she would
have to be completely out of her fucking mind to show up at my house, and I'm
still full up on crazy from that bitch, and I'm not interested in getting any
more from her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But being scared of my brother and sister: I have always had
this tremendous guilt about scaring them when we were growing up. I yelled a
lot, there were physical altercations, hair pulling, face scratching; once my
sister and I hung our brother up by the seat of his pajama pants by hooking the
waistband onto a stubby branch sticking out of a tree in the front yard. I have
carried a lot of guilt about how horrible I was, and over the past couple of
years, they had taken to occasionally reminding me of that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe that is why I have been feeling scared that they would
confront me - because I hurt them in the past, and they probably feel I am
still hurting them now, and I am feeling shame about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I think I am officially over the shame of all of the horrible
things I did to my brother and sister when I was a child growing up in a world
of impending doom, though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am very happy to find that just writing about my brother
and sister has taken away that fear of them, and I am even happier to find that
as I have been getting more grounded over the day, I have not been subjected to
the doom and damnation that I had always believed would come to me if I told on
my mom. I'm actually feeling pretty good and brave about it.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-86421670985528112052012-06-23T21:09:00.004-04:002012-06-23T21:09:51.768-04:00part 115, or "fat lady's singin, bee-otch"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So. Jerry Sandusky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When the State Attorney General spoke following the
announcement of the convictions, she talked about people like Sandusky hiding
behind their status in the community, behind their job titles, and behind their
money, and how this particular case was proof that some people can't hide
forever. It is also proof of how difficult it is to accuse someone like
Sandusky of child molestation, how someone with money, a wife, kids, and a
particular career can be such a gigantic hurdle for a victim to get over before
they even begin facing the public and all of its judgments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Another thing the Attorney General said was that each of the
victims, when questioned about why they had not reported Sandusky earlier, was
that they believed no one would find a kid credible. Then she went on to talk
about how she would believe a kid if they came to her, and the county (or
township or whatever) would believe a kid, and how the state of Pennsylvania would
believe a kid. I found this assertion irresponsible, opportunistic, and
obnoxious, mostly because it is a bunch of bullshit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">How many parents have been told straight out by their five
year old daughter that the next door neighbor put his finger in her vagina, and
then not done anything? People who are parents, or want to be parents, or are
idealistic in any way, would want to believe that they would take action to
protect their child (or any child), and to report the creep-show-neighbor to
the police; at the very least, they would not allow their child to be around
that particular neighbor ever again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It didn't happen that way when I was the five year old
daughter, and it doesn't happen that way for A LOT of victims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the thing: as taboo as the act of harming a child is
- as much as people cry out in righteous indignation about how they would never
let anything like that happen to a kid - turning your head when you are
confronted with it is about 90 billion times easier than acting on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I mean, who are child molesters? They aren't anything that
can be seen or detected from a mile away, though that is what people want to
believe. We have this mindset that if a predator was ever in our midst, it
would be obvious, and so if anyone ever came forward and accused that person of
indecency, it would be readily accepted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But that's not who child molesters are: they are your
fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and wives and husbands and brothers
and sisters; they are the neighbor, the bus driver, the youth pastor, the baby
sitter; the pediatrician; they are people you know - YOU personally and
individually know these people. Child molesters are people who go in and out of
YOUR life everyday, without it even occurring to you that they might not be the
nice, loving, peaceable, harmless friend or family member or acquaintance they
purport themselves to be. They are like germs - YOU can't see them, but they
are there nonetheless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When someone is accused of molesting a child, it is a BIG
DEAL. It might not ever become a big deal to anyone other than the victim and
the person hearing the accusation, but it is a BIG DEAL. Harming children is
not something tolerated in our society; once that label is placed on a person,
it never comes off - it's like a tattoo. It is NOT forgivable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What IS forgivable, though, is a confused child, or a
"misinterpretation" of events or actions, or even an angry spouse manipulating
their own kid to make you the ex look bad. But the actual reality of that
accusation is not something people are apt to consider for more than a few
seconds, if at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom sexually abused me. It was only once, when I was 14,
and it was to "prove" her "loyalty" to my dad. I doubt she would
have done such a thing - ever - had my dad not been standing there goading her
into it. I mean, the bitch hated me, but I have a hard time comprehending the
notion that she regularly performed sex acts on helpless, teenaged girls. Or boys.
The pleasure she got from doing that to me was in her relentless ego, her
all-encompassing narcissism. She hated thinking my dad could manipulate her,
and she LOVED winning an argument, regardless of whether she was right or not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom took her marriage vows very seriously, and there was no
way she was not going to stand behind them. I don't think my dad took the vows
that seriously, but he knew that my mom hated to admit ever being wrong about
something, even if was something said when she was twenty years old and decades
before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, my mom was trying to convince my dad that she would
do anything to prove her commitment or loyalty or some shit, and my dad was
pushing her buttons, saying that he did not believe her, that he knew she was
not completely loyal to him. What would she have to do to prove it? She told
him she would have done anything. ANYTHING.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know why my dad told her to do that to me. I don't
know if it was because he really did not believe she would sexually assault her
own child, and that she would be forced to admit that she was not so loyal to
him after all, and he would be the winner, or if he knew that she would do what
she told him because it was the only way to validate her argument, and he knew
that she would choose to do those things to her own daughter rather than admit
she might not be as loyal as she was convinced she was, or wanted him to
believe she was, and he could relish in the absolute power over her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know. But he told her to do it. I was right there,
watching them. When he told her what to do to me, she got a shocked and
horrified look on her face, but only for a second. Then all of the muscles in
her face went slack, and her eyes turned into dead green glass, and I could see
she was falling into that place where she felt nothing but her own superiority
with being right. And then she did it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She told me where to sit and what to do, and I did what I was
told, and then she did probably the most horrific and evil thing a mother could
do to her child, and as broken as I already was before then, it felt like there
was nothing left of me at all - no fear, no anger, no sadness, no tears, no
pain, no hope, no devastation - just a shell, a robot, completely void of any
feeling at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And I just stayed that way. That's who I was in that house. Every
now and then some feeling would come back to me, and I would smile or laugh, and
it was so nice when that happened. But it didn't take long for something to
remind me of what she did, and I did not acknowledge it in my head at all, but
just go back to being a robot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Up until that Attorney General lady said that about Sandusky
hiding behind his reputation and social and economic status, I could not fathom
telling the world what my mom did to me. But one of Sandusky's own kids, Matt,
had approached the prosecution the evening before his dad was to testify, and
he told them what his dad had done to him. He also told them he would be
willing to testify against his dad. And that was that. Sandusky was absolutely done
for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But so is Matt's relationship with the people he has known
and loved for most of his life, including his mom and siblings. I wonder if he
has any idea how much pain he is going to feel as a result of doing what he
did. I did not realize the amount of pain that was in store for me when I told
my brother and sister and uncle that my mom had sexually assaulted me, but it
was like I couldn't stop it. I was so angry, and indignant, and it was all so
big in my mind, I don't think I would have been able to not tell people what
she did to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Matt Sandusky was immediately thrown under the bus by his
family. His mom and siblings, and Jerry himself, have invoked anything they
possibly could to discredit that kid. He was adopted, he has always had something
wrong with him, he was having trouble being able to support himself - all of
those things are things that anyone who chooses to look the other way and not
confront the reality of it all can use to make themselves feel better. They can
think of those explanations, and not feel so nauseous, or dirty, and completely
wrecked as they had been when they first heard what Matt was telling people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Because it is DEVASTATING to do what Matt Sandusky did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe his mom and other family members will come around to
accepting the truth someday, and maybe my mom and other family members will do
that, too. But until then, they are choosing to believe the shit she put out
there - she said I am getting revenge on her for not doing anything about my
dad abusing me, I'm psychotic, I'm a sociopath - I have all of the excuses she
came up with in an email she wrote. That's how she told me she would never
confront that truth about herself, in an email.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, I did initially confront her in an email. In one
of her responses she told me that what I was accusing her of was
"disgusting." I don't know why, but her use of the word
"disgusting" in denying the things she actually did makes it easier
for me to not miss her as much. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At various other times in her emails responding to my
accusations, she pitched her theories that people who did not want to believe
the truth could believe instead. My sister called me and said that I probably
had a "psychotic break," my brother called me (and my husband and my
son) and said how I was "like him" (our dad), and my uncle called me
and didn't try to deny any of it at all. Instead he asked me if it could have
been my dad's idea, and not hers, and I told him, yes, he was standing there
the whole time, and I didn't think she would have done it on her own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And my uncle said what he's been saying for years, but that I
hadn't really heard until that moment: "I've always believed your father
had some sort of Svengali effect on her." When he said that, I knew he
believed me, that it was not difficult for him to conclude that it could have
realistically happened as I'd claimed. I knew that the pieces were rapidly
falling into place for him, and hoped he would stand behind me, but he didn't.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Those are all of the reasons why I feel that Attorney
General's claim was irresponsible and opportunistic and obnoxious - because I KNOW
what the real story is. I KNOW that is not something that will ever be true for
the great majority of victims. I KNOW Jerry Sandusky will be only one of
thousands to be confronted with what he did in a court of law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But that lady also said something else that I heard loud and
clear - that other victims can feel stronger about coming forward with their
own stories, and she encouraged us to do that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And she was right - I do feel stronger about it, and coming
forward with my own story is what I just did.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-9679166678543013092012-06-21T15:03:00.004-04:002012-06-21T15:03:52.637-04:00part 114, or "motherfucking fuck fuck, revisited"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Movie and TV depictions of 12 step meetings are very
irritating to me. They seem to all involve somebody or another standing up in
front of a crowd of people (or sitting in a circle), and describing just
exactly what a shit bag they were when they were drinking (or using, or
gambling, or whatever). Then they talk about getting humbled - all of the
difficult things they experienced, hitting the bottom, going into recovery,
finding hope and redemption…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know - somehow the air of sincerity, of genuine
humility, never comes off, and the person doing the talking looks like just
another schmuck who learned how to play like they aren't really angry and in
pain. Fake serenity - I guess that could be what bothers me about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was going to post "my story" about being
sexually abused as a child on a website full of survivors' stories. I started
writing about my dad, and how I never remembered not being someone who had been
abused, and how my dad was a lunatic, and fortunately dead…and then I came to
where I felt a concise, yet straightforward, summation of the specific things
that happened to me should be injected. The list of things that happened to me,
things that can be described by only one word, categorized: rape, torture, incest,
abortion, etc., etc., etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have tried to put all of the single words that describe
what happened to me into one sentence over and over and over again. It drives
me crazy. On the one hand, using those very powerful words - words ensconced in
pain and misery and desperation - are kind of overwhelming to be used all in
one sentence. It ends up sounding like an intended shock-factor used to grab
peoples' attention, regardless of whether or not they are genuinely interested
in what is being said. You know, like Nancy Grace (that bitch is crazy). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The emphasis on those individual words with the overpowering
meanings: horror; mother; child; rape; murder; slave; sex; exploitation; evil;
disgusting; and on and on. Nancy Grace knows every single one of those words,
and how to say it precisely for the maximum shock value; she is the modern day
Geraldo. So, yeah, I don't want to sound like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What do I say instead, though? I mean, saying things has
been an amazing part of getting myself to a place in which I feel I am a worthy
and strong person, genuinely capable of knowing what is real and not real, and
what is wrong and not wrong. It's the thing I have the power to do: write,
talk, hold my face up, naked and unprotected, to the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But what about the blurb on the back of my book, or the
"author" page on a website, or a concise version of my story of abuse
when there is just no place for it all to fit? What do I say when people want
to know who I am, why I am important, why any attention should be paid to me,
why any credibility should be given to the things I say? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I mean, its not even so much of "who am I" as it
is "what happened to me." I don't like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">As with many, many other people in the United States, my
family and I have had a lot of financial struggling for the past few years. I am
powerless to do anything about it - I can't hold a regular job, and I don't get
paid anything for writing. Every day I go to class (I am now in my 7th year of
obtaining my 4 year degree), we lose money.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I first started going to school, the student loans and
out-of-pocket expenses were an investment toward what I would be able to earn
after getting my degree. I hadn't factored a nervous breakdown and ongoing, crippling
mental illness into the equation. And it gets harder every day to keep floating
that borrowed and spent money - it feels more like I am just pouring it all
down into a bottomless well, and less like I am building something better for
myself and my family to stand on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Another thing I had fruitlessly counted on was our
house, and how it would be a resource to help us get through the emergency,
unexpected expenses of being alive. That was 12 years ago, and obviously (again
like so, so many others) don't have anything to show for that except a roof
remaining over our heads. I have to focus on that, too - we still have our
house, our home - that is a lot more than a lot of other people have, so how
can I complain?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Um, well, one way I can complain is that I don't even want
to fucking be here to begin with. What good is a house if there is no other
choice but to be in it while simultaneously and constantly dodging the people
who raped and molested and generally fucked me in every way possible, literally
and figuratively? And one of those people is my own mom! I mean, Jesus fucking Christ,
how am I supposed to be able to not only be awake, but to TAKE CARE OF MYSELF,
too, in this miserable fuck-hole town? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have just spent too much of my life in bad situations
waiting and waiting and waiting until I am able to get somewhere else: that's
all the first twenty years of my life were. Maybe I am just getting kind of
greedy, or ungrateful for what I do have right now. I have a beautiful family,
and a car, and a really nice husband, and amazing kids, and a number of
super-cute bags and pairs of shoes, and regular meds, and regular therapy - I mean,
I have even been able to go to the dentist and get my teeth fixed (well, about
half of them so far). So am I being ungrateful? That is a distinct possibility.
But I don't fucking care!!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've worked so hard, and done so much, and have been told
how strong I am, and what an inspiration I am, and all of the other horrendous
and crushing shit I have done, and I have paid my goddam dues, and put in more
than my share of suffering. Why can't I have a front porch with a swing on it
where I can rock and be peaceful and watch people who did not rape or molest or
torture me go by? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why???????????????????????????????????? WHY AM I STILL
TRAPPED HERE?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">For Christ's sake, why hasn't anyone come along and seen the
value in me and helped me to take my family and GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE?
Haven't I done enough earning? The only way I have been able to maintain some
semblance of sanity is by having complete faith that the bad will always be
outweighed by the good, but at this rate, I am going to drown in this shit
before I even have a chance to experience the amount of "good" that
will make all of this "bad" even out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And the goddam words that I have to say every day, the infuriating
individual words that name what happened to me, so I can figure out who the
fuck I am now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Somebody, PLEASE, get me the fuck out of here! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-21335718425442971072012-06-11T22:52:00.001-04:002012-06-11T22:52:05.976-04:00part 113, or "stupid bitch-ass bitches"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was reading this old interview with Augusten Burroughs'
mother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.npr.org/2006/10/08/6209286/augusten-burroughs-mother-speaks-out">http://www.npr.org/2006/10/08/6209286/augusten-burroughs-mother-speaks-out</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was about 22 years old when I figured out it was really
shitty to say anything not good about anyone's mother to that person, even if
they say not good things about their mother all day long. I've learned a lot
since then, too, including how not good my own mom truly is. I don't ever
remember anyone saying anything bad about my mom while I was growing up - not
to my face, anyway, or not anything that could be taken too seriously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad was really the only person I heard say bad things
about my mom. He made fun of her long, pointy nose and her overactive startle
reflex and her absentmindedness. When they got divorced about ten years ago, my
dad said incredibly mean things about my mom, and to her. He was a big fat
whore, and in defense of himself, said my mom knew about everything that was
going on, and always had. My mom, of course, claimed to know nothing of the
kind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I thought my dad was really reaching when he told me that my
mom knew everything he had been doing with other women for years. It wasn't
difficult to take her side - the man was loony tunes, and said all kinds of
things that didn't make any sense (for example, when he told me he was god). I've
never trusted the man that I can remember - one of my earliest memories is of
him mangling my two front teeth, the baby ones. I was only like a year old when
that happened, but I remember it, even if remembering something when you are
one year old is not supposed to be possible. And I don't remember ever trusting
him before or after that incident.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But my mom was different - everything she always said was
the truth. For example, AIDS is a result of gay men having sex with monkeys in
Africa. Also, it's okay to marry someone black, but it would be best not to,
because mixing my white blood with their black blood would likely produce a
child with a lot of health problems. She also said she loved me, that she put
her children before herself, and that she wouldn't have let anyone - including
my dad - hurt any of us (my sibs and me). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">These are things that my mom said, and that I truly believed
with all my heart and soul until I was an adult, and even with conflicting
information coming in (and causing me to feel naïve and stupid), I somehow kept
hanging onto the idea of my mom as someone honest and smart. At therapy this
week, my therapist noted that I had an extreme loyalty to my mom. I didn't
understand what she meant at first, but we both worked it out so I could
understand: my loyalty to my mom was in my mind. In my mind, I stuck by my mom
like glue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm sure I've done some mean things to my mom, but I can't
remember anything specific right now - btw, I have said a lot of times that I am
certain that something in my past was true about me, and can't remember
specifics. I'm wondering now if there were no specifics to remember - what if I
just believed what people said about me? Huh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, maybe I haven't done some mean things to my mom. When I
was on drugs, I stole money from her, and I took cash out of her purse all
through high school, and I know SHE thinks I was mean to her, but I just can't
remember anything. I remember hating her, but not necessarily consciously
acting on that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of years before my parents split up, I was in the
kitchen talking to my mom, and I was going to come right out and tell her about
my dad's affairs (specifically the sexual ones), but I just couldn't tell her
something I thought would hurt her so badly. It was very frustrating how she
clung to my dad and refused to acknowledge anything bad enough about him to leave
his ass, and I thought by telling her straight up that my dad cheated on her,
she would be shocked into getting the hell away from him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I thought of how that information would hurt her deeply,
and I decided that it was my dad who was having the affairs, so it was my dad
who could tell her about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Once on her birthday, my dad completely ignored her and
nobody even could tell if he remembered it was her birthday, and it sucked. It hurt
me a lot to see him hurt my mom. I asked her why she let him do such mean
things to her, and she started crying. I was wrought with the guilt of my part
in making her cry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I really cannot even imagine saying anything mean to her
growing up. In the last communication we had (about a year ago), I said a lot
of TRUE things about her, and about what she had done to me, but nothing
deliberately hurtful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She was just always so VAGUE, about everything. It was hard
to even try to pin anything on her. It has taken a lot for me to get beyond
that mindset - my loyalty to her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Needless to say, I say all kinds of mean things about her
now, such as "my mom is a mind-fucking narcissist, and I don't know why
somebody didn't ever beat the shit out her at any time in the past." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The way she is handling things now, my specific accusations
against her, is by pretending they don't exist. She focuses on what she wants
to believe and what she wants other people to believe. She is seriously a heartless
bitch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So when I was reading this old article about Augusten
Burroughs' mom, I got very agitated when it got to this part: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">"At this point,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Running
with Scissors</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> the
book and the movie are a great part of [Augusten]'s life," she says.
"But it's part of his life. It's not a part of my life. That book really
touches me very little. It's not my focus.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>"</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I read that, I was thinking, "well, no shit it's
not your focus - it reflects negatively on you and if you don't acknowledge it,
then you don't have to react to it." It's a very selfish thing for a
mother to do, to refuse to acknowledge the pain she caused her child, to act as
though it was never real, and as if she is tremendously gracious for saying she
still loves her child even though that child tried to say things that would
make her look bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I really do think it is foolish to say anything not good
about someone else's mom, but my impressions of Augusten Burroughs' mother
remind me very much of my own mother. And since my mother is my mother, I feel
perfectly comfortable in saying that the woman is insufferably evil.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-81825827400806455312012-06-06T14:57:00.003-04:002012-06-06T14:57:56.794-04:00part 112, or "its all a mix of good AND evil"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have this awesome new phone, and I put a 32gb card in it,
and downloaded all of these games and apps, and I love it so much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Lately I have been doing a word search game on my phone. I find
it very soothing. I noticed that whenever I can't find a word, I start to feel
anxious and prepare myself for disappointment, but then I find the word - every
time. When I am searching and searching for something I know is there but can't
find it, I start to wonder if there has been some type of mistake made, and the
word was accidently left out of the search, or the word was never in the
search, and was added onto the list of words mistakenly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I eventually find the word - every time. It is very
reassuring, and I think I am starting to really trust that the word is there
and that I will eventually find it, even if it seems like it is missing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We just started watching the fourth season of Breaking Bad
last night. That show is sooooo triggering for me. I mentioned it to my
husband, and he asked me why I watched the show. I told him I don't like the
triggering parts at all, and I spend a lot of time with my eyes screwed shut
and my fingers shoved into my ears when I'm watching it, but the show is really
fascinating. Also on a lot of different levels, I can relate so much to the
characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've witnessed and been involved in a lot of violence (A
LOT); I used to use meth; I am a parent; I have been desperate; I have seen how
I can do things I never thought imaginable before getting so desperate that
horrible, awful, crazy, ludicrous ideas become logical; I know what it feels
like to detach from violence and pain; I know what it feels like to be scared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">These are the things about me that are also portrayed in the
show, and it is not difficult for me to imagine myself being in those
situations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Last night it seemed, though, that I was seeing much more
logic in killing people (not real-life people, just the characters in the show)
to get out of tight spots. I'm usually not so callous. It makes me remember
that I am capable of doing that kind of thing - of becoming emotionally and
psychologically shut down enough to survive the most horrific experiences,
regardless of whether or not I am a perpetrator or an innocent bystander. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I hate violence. I mean, I HATE it. It is ugly and cruel and
unnecessary and destructive to anyone touched by it. Violence is like a
poisonous gas - you can survive being exposed to a poisonous gas if you don't
breathe too much of it in, but over time, being repeatedly exposed is not
harmless. It is going to hurt you, if not kill you, eventually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But for whatever reason, you are unable to stop being
exposed to the poisonous gas. It may be that you are continuously forced to be
in the vicinity when someone else releases it, or it may be that you have
survived releasing it yourself so many times that it just makes more sense for
you to do it than anyone else. It may be that you have been exposed to it so
many times that you know the damage is done, and you don't give a fuck about
furthering the harm of repeated exposure. It may be that someone else offers
you some irresistible incentive to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Whatever it is that puts you in the place of poisoning
yourself and other people over and over and over again, the result is the same:
being poisoned and poisoning other people becomes part of who you are. At that
point, you keep doing it because it is who you are. You know how it works, and
you are good at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And let's face it - committing mass murder by gassing a room
full of people is much easier and simpler than trying to come to terms with
their existence, or trying to convince all of those people to do what you want
them to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It's just that you lose your soul in the process. I guess in
some ways losing my soul has been a relief, but in others, it is the worst pain
imaginable. I haven't lost it completely, though - I actually have a good bit
of it left, but I have to be careful about what I am exposed to, because the
damage that is done is done. Souls don't grow back, they just get stronger if
you work really hard at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And let's face it - it is easier letting something die than
it is to work so hard to keep it alive, even if it is your own soul or your own
self that you are letting die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Its fucked up. It is so completely counter-intuitive to our
fundamental human instincts of survival.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But it's there - it's real. I mean, what the fuck else are
you going to do?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know why I still have some soul left. By most
accounts, I would be locked up in prison or a mental hospital by now, soulless
and vile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Evil is a strange thing, and resilience against it is even
stranger. I don't feel like I had any choice in getting clean and sober, or
staying that way, or in learning how to get along with a big chunk of my soul missing
after my own parents systematically lobotomized it over my childhood, and into
my adult hood. For some reason, there has always been a solid bottom line for
me where I land after I've been sinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It has nothing to do with willpower, or goodness, or
righteousness, or any other bullshit mind-fucking ideals like that. It's just
what is there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm writing my second book. It is about the way people come
to the point of committing irretrievable violence. I don't think it is necessarily
a healthy thing for me to be writing about, but it's what I have; it's what I know.
Maybe the writing is what is holding the complete destruction of my soul at bay
- it feels like that sometimes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And if I can make a living off of doing what I know how to
do to keep my soul from imploding, then even better still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Seriously, what the fuck else am I going to do?</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-74876465034086211952012-05-28T17:41:00.001-04:002012-05-28T17:41:18.656-04:00part 111, or "daddy's little girl"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I tried to kill my dad once. I was fifteen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We were out on the island in Lake Wedowee, Alabama. It was
before he got a lake house out there, and it was this little piece of land in
the middle of the lake we'd camped on and hung out at over the years. It was
"the island."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">(oh yeah, TRIGGER WARNING)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This particular trip to the island was a lot of different
things: it was the last time my father raped me; it was the time I got pregnant
as a result of him raping me; it was the time he tied me naked to the pine tree
for hours, and poured gasoline in a circle around me and threatened to set me
on fire by throwing a lit cigarette down; it was the time so many other things
happened that I can't handle yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Some of the exceptionally horrendous and abominable things
that happened at that island still remain pictures, or flashes, in my mind. I haven't
been able to assign enough words to them to make a complete sentence, or even a
coherent descriptive phrase.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I can describe trying to kill my dad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I had this gun. My dad had given it to me years before. We
were the only people who knew about it, and for a time, we kept it buried under
the screened in porch at our house - that was the hiding spot for it at home. I
was in charge of burying it and retrieving it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">There was only about two and a half to three feet between
the bottom of the porch and the ground, and the closer it got to the side where
the driveway is, it narrowed down even more, maybe to about eighteen inches. I'm
pretty sure that space under the porch is largely unchanged, and the last I knew
of, it was a storage area for old pieces of wood and stuff like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I first started remembering things, I became very
obsessed with the ground under that porch, and under the cement steps that led
from the porch down into the yard, but I didn't know why. I went and dug up the
ground under the steps, but I couldn't quite fit as easily under the porch,
being now grown-up size and all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I got a metal detector to try to locate what was buried
there, to at least narrow it down. In my mind, there was a knife in there
somewhere. I'm actually pretty sure there is a knife still buried there, but at
this point the floor of the porch would probably have to be taken up to get to anything
like that, and I did not ever bother to ask my mom if she would be willing to
disassemble part of her home so I could
scratch an obsessive itch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I started using the metal detector around the porch and
the yard, it went off almost constantly. At first, I would dig up these spots,
but usually only found old siding and other waste from when the house was
built. The practice back then was to bury all the extra crap from building the
house in the back yard and plant some grass on top of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Realizing this put a gigantic damper on my enthusiasm for
searching for whatever it was I was searching for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It was so crazy, and I was very aware of that at the time it
was happening, but then I would remember there was something very dark and
dangerous in the ground at this house, and I would start looking again. It
wasn't that I was looking for a way to keep other people safe, or to gather
evidence that would put my dad in prison (this being a few years before he
died); it was simply that I wanted answers. I wanted to know what the fuck was
going on in my head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What happened to me? Why? Am I broken, and if so, in what
way? What did he DO to me? What is right there in front of me that I can't for
the life of me see? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Over and over and over. It was maddening. This frame of
mind, I am estimating, took up the first two or three years after I started
remembering things. And I kept remembering things, more and more and more and
more, and it's just like, "what the ever-loving fuck? Can't someone just
come take me away in a strait jacket and let me live in a padded room, watching
old Tom and Jerry cartoons, and continuously being administered valium?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I started writing this blog when all of that was still
roiling in my brain. The past year, though, in particular, has been the first
time I've been able to actually be aware of the healing that's taken place as a
result of quitting drinking, going to a mental hospital, therapy and therapy
and more therapy, and meds and check-ups and check-ins, and all of the other
shit I had been managing to pull off in a state of poverty, mentally and
literally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">BEGIN SIDENOTE:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Throughout this whole nightmare of recovering, I got taken
care of in every way I needed to be taken care of. I got the meds I needed when
I needed them, and I got the therapy I needed when I needed it, and I somehow
got the money I needed every time I needed it. In return, all I had to do was
be awake without hurting myself or anyone else. This would not have been
possible if no beautiful and good people lived on this earth - I may have
questioned that many times in the past, but once I was able to actually learn
how to trust one person at a time (I'm up to about three people I trust now),
all I had to do was ask, and these beautiful and good people were there for me.
I have in absolutely no way been pampered - I have never been surrounded by
bubble baths or spas or fine linens, but I have gotten everything I needed when
I needed it because I've been learning to trust other people - and MYSELF - a
little bit at a time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of days ago, someone posted this quote by Goethe on
facebook: "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live."
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know who Goethe is, or even how I would ever
successfully say that name out loud, but that quote took my breath away. Because
it's true. It has been really painful to learn, but it is definitely true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">END SIDE NOTE.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Back to trying to kill my dad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We were on this island and I had that gun, and I put the
barrel in my mouth and waited for him to turn around and see me, but after a
just a sideways glance, he smirked and turned his back to me and walked away. I
took the gun out of my mouth, and with every fiber of my being completely in
line to shoot the motherfucker in the head, I aimed and pulled the trigger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Except that at the very last millisecond, I turned my hand a
little to the left and hit a tree instead. The pain and torture and torment and
madness both precipitating the moment and following it were more than enough to
convince anyone that shooting my dad in the head was a good thing to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was talking yesterday about this to the most beautiful and
good person in my life, and I was sickened that my dad had so much of a hold
over me, that I could be so finitely certain of taking any action at all - put
everything I had of my mind and body and spirit into taking any action and at
all - and he was so much in my head that I was completely powerless to do what
it was I was so committed to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It's only now occurred to me that maybe it wasn't my dad
controlling my mind and body and spirit that made me turn my hand a little to
the left and shoot a tree instead of his skull. Maybe it was the part of me that
he was not ever able to touch.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-21112688911255746872012-05-23T13:37:00.001-04:002012-05-23T13:37:11.859-04:00part 110, or "seriously - go to hell."<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I really love being able to say things that I really want to
say - things I used to be too scared to say. They are still scary things to
say, but not too scary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been writing a lot about my mom and my brother and
sister, and every time I go to post another blog that says something negative
about any of them, I stop and think "what are you doing? Are you
crazy?" I'm thinking of how my mom and sibs might react to what I am saying
and putting out there. I wonder about the harm it may do to them, or to me, or
to all of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">What if my mom's clients read this, and know who I am, and
stop using her services? I mean, she LOVES making money, and what if I am
getting in the way of that? How mad is she going to be with me? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom almost died once. She got really, really sick and
when she went to the doctor, he gave her antibiotics that she wasn't even able
to swallow. That doctor was a real prick - literally standing with one foot out
the door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So I took her to the hospital. She was in ICU for a couple
of days, and then had to stay in bed for a while after that to get her strength
back up before she could go back to work. It was very scary - I really thought
she was going to die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She wouldn't talk about it, though. She brushed off her
brush with death, and kept on going along about how much money she was losing by
not working. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Just before I "broke up" with my mom, she was
talking about this big trip to Greece she was taking with her husband to
celebrate my dad's death. Okay, I actually do not know if that is accurate or
not, but they did use the money from my dad's life insurance policy to fund it.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When she talked about it, she didn't talk about being
excited to go, or how nice it would be to be away, or what her vacation
wardrobe was going to be, or how it was amazing to have the means to make the
trip in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She lamented on how much work she was going to miss, and how
much money she was going to lose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't remember if I ever wrote about this before, but when
I first started having the flashbacks about the sexual abuse and my therapist
said I needed to go to the mental hospital, I kind of panicked, because I certainly
could not afford such a luxury. But speaking with my therapist about it got me
to the realization that my mom was going to pay for it, and if she didn't, I was
going to go to everyone in her family and ask them for help paying for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom has means. Her idea of "broke" is having
thousands of dollars in investments, and a six-figure retirement savings
account, and full ownership of a $300,000 house, and access to plenty of money,
but making all of these things more of a priority in her spending than having
fun, or anything irresponsible like that. She's the martyr. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Granted, she had a rough time growing up, and living with a
sadistic sociopath for thirty years was probably a bit testy at times. Not even
to mention having to raise me - the belligerent, drugged out, slutty daughter
that I was. She already owns the American Dream, though. Must she really
consider herself in dire financial straits because she doesn't have a condo in
Florida or an airplane to fly down there, and the next door neighbor does?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She really must. She has quite a talent of balancing
victimization with triumph, real or imagined. She can think about all the
horrible things she's been through, and how hard she's had to work, and all she
wants is a measly trip to Greece (or a new coat, or a car, or a refrigerator,
etc.), so she's going to spend the money on herself, dammit, and not feel
guilty about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I mean, wouldn't it just be easier to go buy a coat? Or go
on a trip? Or replace the 30 year old refrigerator? She will spend hundreds of
dollars on something, then bring it home and say, "I saved this much money
on this thing because I got it on sale, so I had to buy it," and she will
feel proud because she didn't just spend hundreds of dollars on herself, she
actually really got money back because of the sale price.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder if she was this way about money with my brother and
sister. I don't know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, after that talk with my therapist about going to the
mental hospital, I went to my mom's house and told her that my dad sexually
abused me, and that I wanted to go to a mental hospital, and I wanted her to
pay for it, and I didn't ever want to pay her back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She said, "I don't know what you think I'm made
of," referring to the large expense I was asking her to acquire and
implying that she was not "made" of money. So I told her my backup
plan of going to her brothers and telling them what happened to me growing up,
and asking them to help me pay for my hospitalization. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">She changed her mind about paying for it pretty quickly. She
said, "alright, I'll figure it out." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And she did - she was really great, and I only saw how she
was there for me in such a substantial way when I really needed it. I chose not
to acknowledge the part where I had to pretty much blackmail her to get her to
do it, and I chose to ignore the $10,000 receipts she kept giving me "for
my records." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I chose to look past the part where she actually had to make
herself cry when I told her what my dad did to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I chose to look past the part where she said over and over,
"I'll do anything you need," and then didn't.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I chose to ignore the part where she didn't do anything
-ANYTHING- when I told her what the neighbors had done to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I chose to look past the part where I felt the anger and
betrayal and knew she did something to me, and I knew where she did it, but
couldn't quite remember what it was, and she got really pissed and defensive
when I asked her about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This list could go on and on and on. It really could - I keep
thinking of new ways she dicked me over before I even finish writing down the last.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And I still ask myself, "what are you doing? Are you
crazy?" before I publicize anything she might be offended by. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why do I do that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Then I think of what she did to me to "prove" her
"loyalty" to my dad, of how she hurt me in order to get points in a
relationship that was nothing more than a giant mind game, and it doesn't
matter why I do that or not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">If I hesitate to say something that might offend my brother,
I think of him telling me that he is a human lie-detector so my mom couldn't
possibly be lying, which meant that I was fabricating all of my accusations
against her because I am "just like him," (referring to, of course,
our monster of a father).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">If I hesitate to say something that might offend my sister, I
think of her trying to convince me that what I was saying couldn't possibly be
true, and then trying to convince me that I'd had a "psychotic break,"
and that no, what I told her our mother did to me did not make her concerned
for the welfare of her own daughters, my nieces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And I think of all that pain I felt toward them, and
remember that no, I don't give a shit if anything I write may cause my mom to
lose her income, and no, I don't give a shit if anything I write might make my
brother wonder if its actually him that's like our dad, and no I don't give a
shit if anything I write might make my sister look bad in the eyes of the
world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And then I wonder about the legal ramifications they could
have against me, and remember that we live in the United States of America,
where fathers rape and sell their daughters, and mothers sacrifice their
children to save themselves, and where siblings are hurt, too, but choose not
to see it, and so side with their abusers, AND where I am free to write all I want
about it and publish it any way I want, because it is ALL TRUE.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm getting a little patriotic now. It must be getting close
to the 4th of July.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-51064147349311802692012-05-20T13:01:00.003-04:002012-05-20T13:01:41.658-04:00part 109, or "friends are the family you get to choose"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm feeling stronger about my past, about the things that
have happened to me, or that I have experienced. My past is starting to feel
more powerful and less incapacitating. It feels like I'm standing on a really
ugly, but really enduring and formidable, chunk of metal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Being away and out of touch with my mom and sister and
brother has been very good for me. It has been really quite heartbreaking as
well, but definitely very good. They were the last external reminders I had
that I am crazy, or manipulative, or evil, or spiteful, or vengeful, or a liar.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I very much understand that I will not ever be able to say with
certainty that I am NOT crazy, or manipulative, or evil, or spiteful, or
vengeful, or a liar; these are all characteristic of human imperfection, and I'm
an imperfect human. I am also learning, though, that I can define who I am. I don't
have to take the words of mean and horrible people and accept them as who I am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Mean and horrible people are mean and horrible. Does it suck
that my mom and siblings happen to be some of those mean and horrible people?
Of course it does. But they are still mean and horrible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom is one of six children who are now all married
adults. I have ten aunts and uncles who have known me since I was a baby, and
who have known who my mom is better than anyone. Not one of them has even tried
to contact me since I came out with the shit my mom did to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I also have eight cousins on my mom's side. I don't feel
like I ever got to know them very well - we did not spend much time together
growing up since we lived so far away from all of them. I don't know how well
any of them ever got to know my mom, either, but for christ's sake - does every
one of them actually believe that I am the monster my mom says I am?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Every one of my aunts and uncles and cousins has met my dad,
and not one of them liked him - at anytime, ever. They all know my mom; my
aunts and uncles know my mom, and they know what kind of kid she was. I mean,
people don't just start being as fucked up and twisted as my mom once they
reach adulthood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom's siblings know exactly what kind of childhood she
had, they know what it was like growing up in that house - they all know what
it's like to not feel safe in their own home, or to not trust those closest to
them will not hurt them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know exactly what it was like to grow up in my mom's
childhood home, but I do know there is a lot - A LOT - of alcohol rolling
around in our blood. I know there was violence and devastation before me or my
dad ever came into the picture. I know there was terror. I always thought that I
knew there was love, too, but now I am not so sure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My mom has been on a bitch fest for the past thirty years
about how we always had to travel to see her side of the family, and they never
came to see us or stay in our house, or how her sisters hang out a lot more
with each other than they do with her, and blah blah blah. As much as she wants
to know intrinsically that she is an important part of that family, she seems to
have a hard time believing that is true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why is that? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why can't my mom ever really be happy for anyone, even for
herself?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why can't my mom be happy at all?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I have my theories, but I will never know my mom like her
brothers and sisters do. I will never have the experience of being in the same
time and place that my mom was shaped and molded into a person. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe that's why I am very angry and hurt that none of that
side of the family has even tried to email me, or show any other kind of
support - they fucking know her. They know what kind of person she is. Is she
really so intimidating and scary that not one of them will look past her and
let me know that they don't think I'm crazy or a liar?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've never asked anyone to believe what I have said about
the abuse I've experienced. I know evil people can't hide the dark side of them
for long. They don't know how to be happy, beneficent, empathetic people; they
can fake it, but not to everyone all the time, because it is not real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've felt confident - and still do - that I don't have to
convince anyone of anything. I can tell my story, share the truth, reveal
things about bad people, and not have to worry about who believes me or not
because I know it's the truth. They know it's the truth. They fundamentally
know what they did to me, and what kind of people they are, and that happiness
has not been taken from them - they've traded it in for some sort of twisted human
pleasure at some time in their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">They know they are not victims, and anyone who spends any
significant amount of time with them and who does not insist on having their
heads shoved so far up their asses they can see the back of their teeth, also
knows that people like my mom are not victims. Maybe they were at one time, but
they aren't now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My aunts and my uncles, and maybe my cousins, all know what
kind of person my mom is. I've never asked anyone to stand against her, and I know
they are her family, but they are MY FAMILY too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Another thing that I know is that people who have been hurt
like I've been hurt don't say out loud what happened to them because they know
(or at least fear) that they will be ostracized from their family. Being ostracized
by your own flesh and blood HURTS, and maybe some people don't think it is
worth that pain to expose the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But jesus fucking christ - there is a point in all of this
that simply comes down to what is wrong and what is right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I used to think of my mom's side of the family as the good
side. I didn't really get to know anyone on my dad's side of the family - I haven't
even met all of my cousins - but I knew my dad, and with nothing to show
otherwise, I assumed his family was like him. But I was wrong. And I'm very grateful
that I was wrong, because even if those people are virtual strangers to me,
they are my family, and they have been so, so supportive of me. My DAD's side
of the family - they are who reached out to me, even though they never really
had an opportunity to know what kind of person I am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My DAD's side - the side of me I thought was poison running
through my veins, the side I hated to be part of so much that I couldn't stand
the sound of my maiden name, even as a small child - my DAD's name. I've always
wanted to feel more like I came from my mom's side of the family - they were
the people I actually knew, and compared to my dad, they were normal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But they are also gutless cowards, and if there is one thing
I know I am not, it is a gutless coward. I could not have inherited my tenacity
and determination and desperation for justice from my mom's side of the family
- they have made it clear that their priorities revolve around what makes their
lives the easiest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And yeah, I am very hurt and disappointed about that. Very,
VERY hurt.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-23753273179726609992012-05-18T17:58:00.002-04:002012-05-18T17:58:44.255-04:00part 108, or "Sawyer is super dreamy"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was watching Lost (we have the whole series on DVD) last
night, and I was at the part where Locke has the dream about Boone being all
covered in blood and chanting about Theresa and some stairs. The scene started
without defining the context as a dream, so it seemed real, and then there are
flashes of Boone covered in blood and not covered in blood, and Locke's mother
is off in distance telling him something, and then Locke is in a wheelchair,
and then it's all like, "arghhhhhahhh!" and he wakes up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The flashes when Boone was covered in blood and not covered
in blood triggered something for me, but I'm not exactly sure what, except that
it was very similar to how I remember some things, especially when there is
blood. Here is the thing about me and blood: I've seen A LOT of it. It involves
that one thing that I am not comfortable sharing in my blog yet, but there has
definitely been a lot of blood involved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad has hurt other people while I was present, and even
encouraged me to participate in the hurting, as though I was his protégé sadist.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been exposed to these specific instances of violence at
least four times between the age of 4 and 15 (I'm pretty sure). I say "at
least" because even though I thought I was done remembering, I wasn't, and
I'm not ever going to be sure what else is out there. And most of the shit I'm
remembering now is absolutely beyond comprehension. So I don't really like to
talk about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">However, I do think a lot about it, and all the other shit,
and what it means to me in a philosophical way (I don't ever really decide to
be philosophical, it just happens). Its kind of like I'm becoming aware of the
information like I'm being dealt a hand of exceptionally horrifying cards. Each
time I get a new card, I am very much affected physically, I guess like a
shock, and the separateness (dissociation - whatever) comes down on me like a
blanket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am still able to interact with the world, although my
functioning get quite spotty at these times, and my mind is not pulled all the
way into the memory to stew in something the feels like sticky mud. What I can
do is, turn the card over so I can't see the image, and add it to the cards I've
already been dealt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Every now and then I will turn over one of the cards and see
things that I had not known were there - normal things that are stuck in the
middle of brutal chaos, like getting dusty red clay on my white shoes when I was
five. I am able to just kind of meander back to the actual experience, and it
eventually gets played over and over again, enough times to where I remember
something new about each of the cards each time I go back there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I need to interject something very quickly - I don't have
any trauma-related memories of dusty red clay getting on my white shoes when I was
five (not yet, anyway - fuck; maybe that's what's coming next. Sigh) I just
used the dusty red clay thing for an example because I can't think of an actual
memory that would not have to be explained in some detail to put into context.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Also, as I was just writing that, I realized that I don't
really remember being five. I remember turning five, and I remember
kindergarten - actually it seems that all of my memories of being five are
associated only with kindergarten, and Letter People, and the milk cart. Huh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Interjections aside, being able to look at the events of my
past in this way gives me a lot more objectivity - it is a lot easier for me to
see exactly how fucked up it was. It also gives me an opportunity to feel pain,
a little bit at a time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The whole thing has a very sobering effect, and I find
myself not laughing when other people do, and I don't find myself feeling disbelief
at news of atrocities like other people do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am, though, really, really, really sensitive about
situations in which harm can come to people. I don't like weapons - I mean, I know
what they can do to a human being, and shit like that happening is not
something I want to be aware of in the context of a film or book or tv show or
whatever, because it is already such a big part of my real life. It may have
been twenty or thirty years ago that those things became a part of my life, but
that shit just doesn't fade like other things do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It seems to me that most people (that I know, at least) are
affected a lot differently than I am when it comes to violence. Its strange,
because I don't get shocked at the brutality people unleash on each other, but I
get really shocked when I hear that a seven year old got a rifle for Christmas,
and when people say mean things to their children, and how powerless kids are
over their own safety and mental health, and when I hear about parents who
didn't realize there was a problem until after their kid has killed
him/herself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I get shocked at how many things most people are not shocked
by, but I accept the occurrence of real-life brutality as something that is
real and that happens to people every day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It seems like people can't get enough of manufactured
violence, but try to put the news about any war at all on the television at a
sports bar and the tv may as well be turned off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know - Lost has a lot of stuff in it that I am extra
horrified by (I mean, almost all of those characters' parents were such cruel
assholes). The real news does, too - every fucking day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't really understand things like the hour-by-hour
status updates of a white, blonde graduate student who has a flesh-eating disease
on all the front pages for days and days, but a mother chasing down and
shooting four of her children to death, and then committing suicide is an event
to tsk tsk about for thirty seconds, and then put out of your mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I would really like to say that my is point here is merely
to illustrate the difference in my comprehension alongside of other peoples'
comprehension, and has nothing to do with getting all high and mighty and
looking down on people and judging them for seeing only what they want to see,
but that pretty much is what I'm doing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't think people should feel compelled to shower concern
on all of those suffering and less fortunate, but I do really think people
might think twice before smacking the shit out of their kids or telling them to
shut the hell up. I mean, those are the things that are doing the real damage,
the things that breed evil and hate a tiny little drop at a time.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722167972758014799.post-64743645528541836442012-05-17T11:48:00.001-04:002012-05-17T11:48:57.596-04:00part 107, or "i can see the silver lining around the clouds better today"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm feeling a bit better these days. My birthday/Mother's
Day has passed and I am much less anxious and nauseous. On that day I was
really sick - just incredibly nauseous - and I didn't really get out of bed
much at all. I just slept a lot and got waited on hand and foot, which helped
to make up for feeling so bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I figured out that I definitely have a honey issue. I've
really amped up the honey use since I found out I was allergic to pretty much
everything, and it turns out I have an allergy (and/or intolerance) to honey,
too. It feels kind of the same way eating anything with eggs or wheat - it kind
of sucks out my energy, and I get nauseous for awhile. It also eventually gave
me heartburn, which I hardly ever have at all anymore, and it made me think
about how I used to eat antacids all day long, every day, and how much physical
pain I was in every day and did not really find it unusual. I didn't realize
how shitty I felt until I didn't feel that way anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know if I felt so sick on my birthday because of the
honey, or the anniversary of an exceptionally heinous experience; I think maybe
both. My stomach HURT! But the pain and all the sleeping and being waited on
helped me to hardly think about what happened on my 8th birthday, which was the
exceptionally heinous experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">My dad is such a fucking asshole. I find myself being a bit
wistful that he's already dead, because I still want to kill him sometimes. Doing
all the shit he did to me and let other people do to me and made me watch him
doing to other people is, I feel, sufficient to melt my brain and make me
afraid of everything and not know what was real. Why did he have to actually
plan the exceptionally heinous experience on my fucking birthday? And tell me
it was my birthday present? And that he went through a lot of trouble to set it
all up for me?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I hate that I actually felt bad for not appreciating his
"gift," but that was the power he had over me until I was in my
twenties. It is one of the reasons I want to kill him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Another big reason I want to kill him is how he incorporated
me into the awful, twisted things he did to other people. He enjoyed doing that
- hurting people; I guess he thought it was part of his divinity or something. He
wanted me to enjoy it, too. I don't know why - so I could be his protégé? So I would
always feel like a horrific person? So I would feel responsible for it all,
giving him fantastic leverage against me telling anyone what happened? For
shits and giggles? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Probably all of those things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I mean, all of that ON MY BIRTHDAY? Its just another of
those really shitty ways he poured salt in my wounds, which he also loved
doing. He loved to injure me and then mutilate the hell out of the wound - I really
think he liked the mutilating a lot more than the initial injuring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">There are so many of those shitty things, things that just
tip the scales from wretched pain to pure, white, searing soul-crushing. He loved
crushing souls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, I used to love my birthday. It was a celebration of
my birth - of ME. I always felt good about myself on my birthday without
feeling ashamed about it. That's what that day was for me - just the one day,
and I loved that day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Now I get so sick and anxious on my birthday I can't even
remain conscious, let alone get out of bed and be happy about it. What a
fucking DICK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am much more comfortable talking about wanting to kill him
now than I was before he was already dead. I have thought about that a lot,
like "what's the process there? Was I too afraid of him to actually
believe I would go through with it? Was I still, deep down, the eternally-devoted
daughter? Did I just fundamentally not want to hurt him?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It didn't take me long to figure out the answers to those
questions: no. The reason I was uncomfortable talking about wanting to kill him
before he was dead was because I didn't want to get sent to the mental hospital
again. The reason I didn't kill him is because I didn't want to go to prison. That's
it. It is really that simple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've often fantasized about shooting him in the middle of
his forehead. For some reason, it makes me feel very calm, even to the point
where I have considered how steady my hand would be holding the gun despite
being a shaky person the rest of the time. Sometimes I start to react to that
thought like a regular person, and begin to feel sick and scared about wanting
to kill someone - truly, sincerely wanting to kill someone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But then I remember again what he did to me and to those
other people, and what he let other people do to me. I remember that I don't
want to kill a person, I want to kill my dad, and then I feel calm again. It
had not even crossed my mind that I would find a reason to want him to be alive
still - before he died, it was incomprehensible to me that I would want
anything other than him being dead, even if I killed him myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Now I long for him to be alive again so I can kill him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't regret not killing him. I logically know that
killing him would have caused so much more pain than just waiting for him to
die (which fortunately happened sooner than later). Hurting people has
consequences - it chews at your soul whether the person deserved it or not. I'm
tired of getting my soul chewed, and so I do not regret not killing him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But my birthday was pretty difficult this year, especially
since it was on Mother's Day, and when I turned 8, that was also on Mother's Day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Two things made me feel soooo much better, though. These two
things made it bearable:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The first one is that Jonny took me to a reading and
book-signing by Augusten Burroughs. I got to meet him and give him a hug and he
signed my copy of his new book with "Happy Birthday!" I also signed a
copy of my own book (the one that I wrote) and gave it to him. It was exciting,
I guess because he is famous. But the reason I feel the need to be exposed to
him - by reading his books or physically meeting him or whatever - is because
there are not so many people in the world who know that kind of pain and are
still coherent enough to talk about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">During the Q&A, he said "sometimes the pain is just
so big…" I don't remember what the question was, or whether or not he said
anything before or after that phrase, but it seemed like everyone just zeroed
in and everything got quiet and he said that about the pain that is just so
big. There is no way to describe pain that big. Most people will never know
pain that big. It is pain that is just so purely PAINFUL, that there aren't
really any words that could follow that statement. Because it is a statement. It
started out sounding like an explanation, "sometimes the pain is just so
big…because such and such and whatnot."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But it's really just a statement: "Sometimes the pain
is just so big."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It meant a lot to me to be able to be there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The second thing that made my birthday more bearable was
that I started that blog I spoke about in my last post (or the post before
that, I don't remember), the one about having a shitty mom. It's called "I
have a shitty mom," and you can read it at ihaveashittymom.blogspot.com. I
sent out an evite on facebook telling everyone about my new blog that I was
launching, and I did it on Mother's Day, in honor of my shitty mom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The shitty mom blog is really more gossip and judging people
who make spectacles of themselves, and not so much about pain, so it has been
really fun to work on. And I LOVED announcing the publication on Mother's Day.
Which was also my birthday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It meant a lot to me to publically and definitively state
just how shitty my mom is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now that my birthday has passed (and I am one year farther
away from being 15), I really am feeling better.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Rebecca Raymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17099037461520171007noreply@blogger.com0