part 114, or "motherfucking fuck fuck, revisited"

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…

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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?

I mean, its not even so much of "who am I" as it is "what happened to me." I don't like that.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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!!!

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?

Why???????????????????????????????????? WHY AM I STILL TRAPPED HERE?

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.

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.

Somebody, PLEASE, get me the fuck out of here!

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!