part 88

So my sister - Jessie - is the latest to send me an email. No really, what the fuck?

My mom saw one of my kids in public and said hi to him, too. That really bothered me.

I feel like these are trivial things that don't warrant my anger and outrage, but these are the same people who have been trying to convince me that I am crazy and dirty, and now they are trying to convince me that I am dangerous, too.

It's also really bothering me that I am trying to set boundaries for myself, and they are continuing to think it is some sort of joke.

I haven't threatened anyone, at all, in any way. If I want to say my sister's first name in my blog, I'm going to say my sister's first name in my blog. If I want to write about them and how they are affecting me, then I am going to write about them and how they are affecting me.

The thing that scares me about them contacting me is that they seem to feel entitled to tell me what to do, and what is okay behavior, and what is not okay behavior. The reason that scares me is that I have always deferred to them in the past because I always believed that I didn't know what was okay behavior and what was not okay behavior. It also scares me that they are not getting that "no" means "no," as in, "no" I don't want to have anything to do with them anymore. Ever.

For example, when I first started trying to bring up my mom's part in everything with her, she would automatically get really defensive and tell me that she was completely innocent and for me to "deal with it." So I wouldn't press her at that time. The big difference between me confronting her in the past and the last time we spoke was that I didn't automatically take her word that I was out of line and needed to shut up.

My sister - Jessie - is threatening me with legal charges if I use her name in any form in my blog. She also said she will "press charges" if I in anyway - directly or indirectly - refer to her or anything about her, or anything within any proximity of her.

Another thing is that my brother and my sister have both said - and written - that they will take some form of retaliatory action if I do anything to my mom or her husband or her property, even though I have not so much as set foot in the entire neighborhood, let alone threatened to do anything. If I don't want to have anything to do with them, why would I interject myself in any way in their lives?

No, really - what the fuck? I asked each one of them specifically not to contact me or anyone in my family, but they all have anyway. All I want - and I feel I've made myself clear about this - is for them to leave me the fuck alone. It seems as though they are okay with leaving me alone under certain conditions, but if I do something to piss them off - which so far has consisted of me writing about them in my blog - then they can contact me all they want.

That's not how it works, and I am just starting to figure that out. I don't know why I am so scared of each of them individually - maybe because they each have different ways of getting to me, and they are really, really good at saying something without actually saying it, and then getting indignant at me for suggesting that they were really saying what they were actually really saying to begin with.

Its what they have always done, really. It is a part of how they try to convince me that what is real is not really real. I find it incredibly intimidating.

But all three of them coming at me at once - my mom, my sister - Jessie, and my brother - Nik, crosses some line with me and just makes me really emboldened to defend myself and my sanity.

I really don't like any of it at all, and as I mentioned before, I just want them to leave me the fuck alone.

I also feel like my blog is becoming my big whining channel, and that by writing about them and what they are doing I am simply being passive aggressive and childish. I think it's really obnoxious when people document every move and word of another person in order to convince themselves or someone else that the other person is somehow bad - it just takes up so much time and energy, and wastes so many opportunities to just breathe in and out and be alive. But that is what I feel like I am doing here sometimes.

I don't need to convince myself that they are bad, though, because I have already come to terms with it and know they are bad. I don't need to convince them they are bad because I don't give a shit what they think regarding me or anyone else.

Another thing - for some reason I am really terrified of looking foolish and malicious and childish and petty by writing about them here, and I am pretty sure they know that, and so assume they can tell me I am malicious and dangerous, and I will then do whatever they say.

The thing is, though, so what if I look really foolish and malicious and childish and petty? What if I really AM foolish and malicious and childish and petty? This is what: NOTHING. It is okay for people to think I am all of those things - its what people have been saying about me my whole life anyway, so why shouldn't I put it all out there? The only thing my blog changes about all of this is that I feel better writing about it all and then making it available to the general public.

That's it. It's not going to make everyone think that I am sound and faultless, and it's not going to convince everyone that I am not (nor have always been) a maniac. But it makes me feel better. So I'm going to keep doing it.

It's not like I have anything to lose, other than my supremely fucked up relationships with my parents and siblings, and I'm okay letting those go. I'm not doing anything wrong, dammit! This is what my inner-dialogue repeats over and over again all day long because I automatically feel like I am doing something wrong if I'm doing anything to defend myself. But I'm not doing anything wrong!

It doesn't matter what a shitty person people might think I am, or even what a shitty person people know I am - I don't have to prove myself worthy enough to justify defending myself.

One more thing that has been bothering me about my brother - he has asked me how he is supposed to believe what I say, and to continue to be angry with the neighbors, if I don't act in a way he approves of, but I don't care if he believes me, and I don't care who he is angry with. Where did that even come from? I have never - not one single time - asked anyone to believe me or to be angry with anyone else for what they did to me.

Why is it that my mom and brother - Nik, and sister - Jessie, all truly and sincerely believe that I give one iota of a fuck about what they think or believe or do? Why do they think they are in any way relevant in my life right now? SERIOUSLY - I really, really just want them to leave me the fuck alone!

That's all I'm feeling angry about right now, and I feel less angry now that I've written about it and am going to post it on my blog.

part 87

I was talking to another survivor of childhood abuse, and he mentioned the need to grieve the things that were done to us. That really threw me for a loop. I have been busy grieving the family I never had, and learning how to get along in the world. It had not occurred to me that I would need to additionally sort through all of that pain from the actual acts that hurt me, and grieve that pain, too.

It adds yet another new dimension to it all, but at least this time I was already aware of what was there, even if I wasn't aware of what I would need to do with it.

All of the shit I remembered about my mom, and the realizations of what it all meant, was the last big blow. I've described before how much it felt like I had a nightmare jack-in-the-box in my head, and that just when I had gotten to the point of being able to deal with a previous new memory, a new new memory would surface, and knock me back again.

I feel like my mom, and I guess my brother and sister, are everything I was so terrified to lose. Maybe the reason I didn't recognize all of the bad things with them was because it meant I would lose them. Actually, right now it feels more like recognizing that I never had them.

I guess I actually did fight seeing what was real a lot; I mean, my own brain took it all out of play for fifteen years, and that's a pretty big indicator that I fought not to see it. It seems like I have been fighting not to see every little thing that happened, but in the end I am not able to fight that hard for that long, and it all eventually comes out.

This shit with my mom, though- jesus. It is the worst. My MOM. The person I needed and wanted her to be wasn't real, and what's left over is this malicious, conniving, self-obsessed, and very, very sick woman. On the one hand, I can definitely empathize with her madness as a human being, but on the other hand, the BETRAYAL is such a huge punch in the gut. It is a really long lasting punch, too. That shit hurts - it is so heavy, and it really, really hurts.

I wonder how different it would have been if she had just been straight-up about hating me, and had not tried to convince me that she was an awesome mom and person. How would it have been different if she had not gone to such lengths to convince me that I was crazy? Would I actually be crazy if I had to face all of that shit head on as a kid? If I didn't have continuous objections to accepting what other people told me about myself, would I have just become what they were trying to make me believe I was?

Its just that there has been a lifetime commitment of deceit and withholding love. I wonder if it was worth it, now that I'm telling everyone about it anyway? She almost made it, too. All of those assholes over in that neighborhood almost made it. They are all past 60, retiring, dying, rocking on the front porch. They all almost made it to the golden years without having to face what they had done. Really, without having to face me.

But here I am. All of that work, the mind-fucking, the subduing, the covering up, the stress of just keeping it going for so long, and the big payoff was so close! But I ruined it for them. I ruined the rest of their lives.

I've been thinking, too, about what my brother keeps trying to make me believe: what if I am a stone-hearted, malicious, devious bitch bent on manipulating everyone to my advantage and/or sick pleasure? First of all, if I was that person, I really feel I would have manipulated my way into a much easier socio-economic status. What would the point be of going through all of that work to make things easy for myself without actually making things easy for myself?

I mean, come on. I'm 35 years old and have never been able to hold a real job, or to even consistently care for my own personal hygiene. My "new" car is almost ten years old. I get my clothes and purses and shoes from the "used" section on ebay, or on clearance at Target. My house is older than I am, and in need of extensive repairs.

I really think if I was capable of manipulating people this whole time to hurt them or have fun or benefit myself, I would have had a pretty easy time manipulating myself into a 4,000 square foot condo in Buckhead, and a brand new car every year, and open accounts at every department store at Lenox Mall AND Phipps Plaza, and a mouth full of fabulously white, straight, intact teeth.

Now that I am thinking about it, my brother keeps saying that I am manipulating people, but I can't figure out what exactly it is that he thinks I've manipulated.

The thing is, even if I was subconsciously (or consciously) a sociopath who is making up all of these stories about people hurting me for my whole life, even if my brother was right, I still wouldn't want anything to do with him, or my sister, or my mom.

So why the harassment? I don't understand. If I really am such a devious and horrible person, why the insistence on maintaining some type of contact? Why isn't the fact that I don't want anything to do with them not enough to make them not want to have anything to do with me? I guess they could say it's because of the kids, but if I was this horrible person, I still wouldn't let them have any contact with my kids.

Which, by the way, my brother did anyway after I specifically told him not to several times. The email I put in my previous post was copied to my son. What the fuck? Why would someone who claimed to love a kid so much send him an email filled with a bunch nonsensical shit about the kid's mom? I don't know.

I'm really over even trying to make sense of any of it - I already know none of it makes sense, so why keep expending the energy?

It will be soooooo nice when we are finally able to get the fuck out of here.

an email from my brother

Beck,

T** and J** still have to answer to me face to face when I get down there.  I don't mind confronting them without you giving me much to go on and cutting me off.  Mom has since confronted them with wild fury.  You wouldn't believe the way it went down since you clearly don't want to.

Regardless,  I'm writing my thoughts, feelings, analysis, and memories in the spirit of putting it all out there and I don't care what you say.  I don't care what you do. 

Your ultimatums, threats, and attempts to control what I do, think, and believe conjure up my clearest memories of how you treated me during my childhood.

The following is an accurate recounting of what you have told me since July starting with your memory of telling mom what happened. 

You told me that you remember telling mom and that she didn't know what to make of it, didn't handle it right, or didn't believe you.  From that you concluded, or rather decided that she did know and was therefore complicit.  I understand that you then blogged that she was complicit.  By 'complicit' you proceeded to speak and act as if she knew and was covering it up in a conspiratorial manner for which you did not cite any of your own memories to support.  Unless you think what you told me was enough to make that illogical leap.  Your anger, intensity, and focus on this narrative observably grew.  Then you told me about your subsequent memory that supported the narrative that you had committed to and invested in because you decided to despite the weak supposition. 

Then you and Johnny both tried to trap me into either saying that I think you are crazy or that you are right.  I did not fall into that trap.  I listened with an open mind and asked you both for your best argument.  I never argued with you.  I only asked that you give me good reasons to believe.  Johnny literally said that I should believe it because he feels it's true.  That was the best he had.  I value and appreciate his feelings but all that he and you have offered me fall hollow on their own merits. 

I do appreciate the horrors of what you are dealing with and I can.  No amount of your rage can change the truth that I have listened and remained with an open mind.  The truth is that I don't believe you are crazy.  I have not in my deepest darkest thoughts questioned your sanity nor in any conversation with you, Johnny, Mom, or Jess.  Rather I have admired and still admire your strength as you fight through this.  I remain supportive of that.  It doesn't mean I have to let you bully me or try to manipulate me. 

That is precisely what you and Johnny have attempted.  You have deliberately chosen to lie to yourselves and each other to push me into the camp of conspirators who, "say you are crazy."  You had to use a lie to do that because it is just not true.  This blind malicious bulldozing of me when you think I'm in your way rings clear from my childhood memories.  I can remember plenty of times when you cared more about hurting people than you cared about the truth. I recognize this, what you are doing now, because I have seen you do it before. I don't think that's who you really are but a way you came up to deal with things.

You are stronger than everything that happened to you.  I have faith that you will keep kicking ass and taking back what was taken from you.  

However, you literally took my words, changed them, twisted them, and acted according to a narrative you made up right in front of me.  It's like messing up a cheap magic trick and then getting mad at me for seeing through it. That's bullshit.  And it's malicious. 

I know horrible things happened to you and that it was mostly done by my biological predecessor.  Treating me like this has pushed me farther away from getting to the truth about what happened to you.  How can I know what to believe now?  How can I hang to my anger at T** and J**?  I have faith in your strength and I love you.  I cannot have faith in your words when you twist mine.  If you're for real, put this out there, on your blog.

part 86, or "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE"

I don't know why it is so difficult to understand the words "don't contact me, I don't want to talk to you anymore." Maybe the sincerity or reality of my intent is in question because the people I told not to contact me believe that I'm incapable of making such a decision and understanding the consequences of it.

I don't really give a shit if that is what they believe, or what they try to convince themselves to believe to avoid acknowledging what is real, or whatever. Even if I was a raging lunatic, "leave me alone" means "leave me alone."

It is just one more time in my life that I said no and someone else didn't care.

It really is shitty - I am having a really hard time separating myself from my parents and siblings. I am also feeling freedom like I've never felt before, and am able to relax a little because I'm not trying to analyze my every thought and move for any appearance of instability, or evil intentions, or for anything else that can discredit me.

I AM instable. I AM mentally ill. A LOT of people don't find me credible.

I have real diagnoses: Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Major Depression; Dissociative Disorder; Agoraphobia; Addiction; Eating Disorder; Anxiety Disorder - I'm pretty sure that is not an exhaustive list.

I often wonder why that list is not much longer, though, because OF COURSE I have mental health problems - OF COURSE it would not be completely unfounded if people perceive me as being crazy. I WAS REPEATEDLY RAPED AND TORTURED AND EXPLOITED BY EVERY ADULT AROUND ME SINCE I WAS A LITTLE BABY. I HAVE BEEN CONSISTANTLY FACING MY OWN MORTALITY SINCE I WAS A LITTLE KID. WHAT THE FUCK ELSE WOULD I BE?

I have worked really, really hard to get to a place where I can function and care for my kids and my husband and myself, and actually make some substantial progress in the art of being alive. It takes a very careful balance, and that balance is always changing and evolving into more limiting and less limiting conditions.

But it's what I have. BALANCE. And I am sure as hell not going to give up without one bitch of a fight. This is no longer about the people who hurt me - it is about ME dealing with it every fucking second of every fucking day. I'm done trying to convince people that what I have seen and experienced and talked about is real.

I know it's real, and now I'm working on being healthy and productive despite it. I don't have any room for mind-fucking assholes, regardless of the similarity in the composition between their blood and mine, or what they think I might owe them, or how much danger they can convince themselves my children are in, or in any other way come up with some bullshit about how they have valid motive to interfere with my life.

MOM, JESSIE, NIK - FUCK OFF!!! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!! I HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE FREE FROM YOU!!!

That is all I have to say for now.

part 85

I don't want to cry. That's what its come to, though, and I don't want to do it. 

I am mad at my mom. I resent that I am not able to care for myself and my family. I resent that money will always be the very least of my problems. Why can't money be my biggest problem? Why do I have to have money problems on top of all this other shit?

I just need to rest. I have been doing really well taking care of myself- well much better than I used to. But I need to rest! I need to get out of this goddamn motherfucking hellhole of a town. 

I want to pack up Jonny and the boys and say, we don't have to worry about anything at all for two weeks. Let's get the fuck out of here and just go be alive for a little while.

It is so difficult to just be alive all by itself. It would be really nice if I could just be alive without all of this other shit.

I get upset with myself when I get this way. I hate feeling sorry for myself. Come to think of it, I don't really like to feel anything, but I'm getting used to the peace and calm- I would just like the opportunity to lay everything else down and feel some peace and calm.

Not forever, just a couple of weeks ought to do it.

I miss having a mom. I was just starting to get used to the idea that she could be someone I could trust and rely on when all of this shit hit the fan. It was nice while it lasted I guess but I miss having a mom.

I was getting used to having a brother and sister, too. I mean, actual relationships that brothers and sisters have that are good.

It was nice being able to think for a second that I had siblings I could trust- siblings that were not constantly walking on eggshells around me in case they let it slip that they really believe that I am a psychotic sociopath who is dirty and bad. For some reason I didn't realize that they were only treating me like they thought I was a decent person so that I didn't get mad at them for being the same cocksucking assholes they have been all my life.

They tell how my yelling terrified them when we were little. How scary it was just to be around me. 

And I feel bad about it! I apologized to them multiple times, but it didn't occur to me that they hadn't acknowledged jack shit about what they have done to me, too. I mean, I don't feel entitled to an apology from them, but I sure as hell don't want to have anything to do with people who think and live that way.

So I don't. I don't have anything to do with them.

But it still hurts. Its still just as lonely as it was when we were growing up. I still feel that I am somehow a dirty rotten selfish psycho, only out for myself, because that is what they believe. They both said as much in my last conversations with them. They were both trying to convince me STILL that that's who I am.

Okay, I feel better now. I've been typing this on my phone. I'm in my car in downtown Atlanta waiting for the traffic to subside enough to have an opportunity to pull off the curb where I'm parked and go home. Its starting to slow down now. Also my hands are cramping from using this stupid tiny keyboard to write a fucking blog with.

I am really glad I have it, though -my blog. It just got me through being overwhelmed with anxiety and getting really upset about how much my makeup will be messed up if I cry (which is actually a pretty effective way to keep myself from crying). It also let me get every last penny out of the parking meter.

Time to go before I get a parking ticket or robbed or something. I really, really love this city- it scares me much less than so many other things :)

part 84

In my last conversation with my brother I asked him if my mom was sad. He kind of paused and then said a little awkwardly and taken aback that, yeah, sad was one of the things she was feeling. I was a little surprised that he didn't just immediately say that she was feeling really sad.

That was a couple of weeks ago, and it just occurred to me today that what my brother was not saying was that my mom is mad at me.

It kind of slapped me in the face, the same way it did the last time I talked to her - I honestly and genuinely thought she would apologize to me, at least for ignoring me when I was little and doing nothing when I told her what was happening to me. It actually really shocked me that she was pissed about that.

I don't know why it surprised me so strongly when I made the connection between what my brother didn't say and what was going on with my mom. I definitely knew she would be pissed - she did some really fucked up shit and she did NOT like me telling anyone about it, much less publically writing about it.

But I really thought she was feeling a sense of loss, too. She's lost her daughter. She's lost her son-in-law who has been in her life for over twenty years. She's lost both of her grandsons. I really thought she would be sad about that, because when I say she's lost us, it means permanently lost us. Even if there were some sort of reconciliation in the future, nothing will ever be able to get the things she said and did and didn't do out of my head.

I know her now. I've been able to move all of my own pain and fear out of the way enough to see her for who she is. I'm not going to un-see her again. Those things that she did to me got lost in my mind when I was growing up because I depended on her for love and security, and to define who I was, and to survive.

Where is a five-year-old going to go when she tells on her abuser and her own mother does not believe her? Actually, I'm pretty sure my mom did believe me, but she didn't do anything about it - I don't know if that is worse. I think both ways are really shitty.

One of my kids got in a trouble tonight, and I was telling him that I was angry about it, and when I tucked him in, I was still a little angry, but I gave him a kiss and told him I loved him and to have sweet dreams. He smiled at me when I kissed his cheek - I was never able to do that, to switch from being physically hurt to being loving and sweet in a matter of seconds.

My parents would hit me with a wooden spoon or a belt, and then immediately kneel down in front of me and tell me they loved me. They wanted to make sure that even though they hit me with a belt or a wooden spoon, they still loved me. That physically assaulting me meant they loved me. That was when I was little, though. When I got older, I'm not really sure they gave a shit if I believed they loved me or not.

I have been having a weird day. I have been super-jumpy, like literally jerking around - really, like something is jerking on different parts of my body - and shaking violently to the point that my ability to perform simple tasks has been completely inhibited. On days like today, everything startles me more than usual. Its like some invisible little imp is following me around and zapping me with electricity over and over again, and there is no rhyme or reason to it, there's no way to prepare for it, it just comes out of nowhere over and over again.

All I can do is get in my bed with my back against the headboard, which is against the wall, and I don't have to worry about anything sneaking up on me and I can relax a little. The jerking around subsides back to my normal state of just being shaky, and I am able to function again without having to concentrate so hard on what is really real.

When I was about through my first year of therapy, I noticed that my symptoms were getting much worse. My fears and anxieties and flashbacks and gut-wrenching, raw feelings seeping out of every pore got much worse. I had expected to feel better, not worse. My therapist said that is the way it goes, because even though these things happened years ago, I am only now consciously dealing with them, and it is the conscious awareness of them that affects my brain and body to such extremes.

Every couple of months I will notice a new chunk of silver hair on my head. Not a few silver hairs, but a chunk of hair turned silver. It makes me kind of sad, since I'm not old. I feel a lot older, though, and I guess the silver hair is some sort of external validation of that. I guess everything that is happening to me physically is an external validation that I really experienced those hideous moments and days and months and years of just not knowing if I was safe anywhere at all.

I feel the safest when I am on/in my bed with my back against the headboard and I know nothing will be able to sneak up on me. I also feel safe in my car, especially once I get home and turn the engine off. I like to just sit there and feel safe. I would probably do that for hours if my kids or my husband didn't eventually come out to see if I was okay.

I would be a disastrous disaster without them. I don't worry so much that any of them will die or be kidnapped or something, because I do believe that I will not be handed anything I can't deal with, and I definitely wouldn't be able to deal with all of this shit from my past AND lose my husband and/or my kids, so I feel confident they are safe from harm.

Earlier today, when I was coming to grips with the fact that my mom is primarily incensed and not so distraught about losing us, I got this feeling that I hadn't felt in a while. It was the feeling of knowing that it really is going to be this way, that she really is going to flat-out deny what we both know happened, and that people really can do bad things to me and no one will become outraged about it. I guess I was still having the expectation of my mom being a good person and reacting to how torn up I am by being sad, but then I had to remember that she is not taking the same stance as me.

Her stance is convincing people that I am lying and/or crazy, and am making things up about her and telling them to people in order to harm her in some way out of spite or delusion. I suppose if I was pretending that something I did never happened and got called out on it, my reaction would be outrage, too. I mean, what else can you do?

Because it is real, but you can say it is not. It actually happened, but was never supposed to integrate into the timeline we want the world to see. Its real, and accepting and acknowledging that are not options because it would mean having to accept and acknowledge how that passionate and dramatic and resonating outrage was all a bunch of bullshit.

If you're going to put that much effort into bullshitting people, they are going to question what kind of person you really are. They will think that you are bad and small and selfish and cruel. YOU will think you are bad and small and selfish and cruel.

That's not the way it really is though - I know because I've lied like that before. I've passionately and dramatically expressed my outrage at the very idea someone could be questioning my character at all. I dragged it on for years and years and years, but it started to really eat away at my guts - just a little at a time, very slowly. But years and years of it really building up into something quite big and nasty and harmful is not a nice thing to live with.

So I also know what it is to drop the pretense and admit the truth. Some people thought I was bad and small and selfish and cruel, but most people knew it was bullshit all along and were fine leaving it behind once I'd come clean.

The most important thing, though, was that I didn't have to keep putting all of that energy and defiance and indignity into action every fucking day. I didn't have to worry about it anymore, about being found out, or even about being doubted, because I went ahead and threw it out myself. I could just relax because the skeletons in my closet all got evicted and I could just have a nice calm closet.

I don't think my mom will ever acknowledge and admit what she did, though. It is too much, and she is a weak person. She even said to me, a couple of years ago on the way to see a movie, that I was stronger than her. It surprised me that she said that, and surprised me even more that I believed it to be true.

So now all that is left is for her to get eaten up from the inside. Her and the sick, demented bastards in that neighborhood, and all of those men out there who bought or stole some time with me and devastated me. That's all there is left to happen.

I don't expect to be happy to know it is happening, but I don't expect to have much sympathy for them in their suffering either.

I've already put my time in with them - they can't hurt me anymore, and I don’t have to give a shit if they are hurting now.