History

I wrote this a while ago, before this blog.  It's stuff that I've written here , on this blog, already.  But I like to see how my memories come to me at different times.  I have so many years that are missing from my life.  Unfortunately most of my memories are bad ones, all trauma related.  That makes me sad because I know that I had some happy times as a child, for some reason most of those memories are lost.



I tell myself that I have forgiven but deep inside I know that I have not. 

I remember being forced to sit in the chair at the kitchen table.  I think I had been caught in a lie again.  My mom and sister were begging my dad to stop.  He was too angry.  He slapped me across the face and I fell off the chair.  I think I was in middle school at this point, maybe 5th grade- so that would make me how old? 10 or 11?  It doesn't matter.  He picked me up and put me back on the chair.  I wasn't crying yet and that always made them more angry.  So he hit me again and again and again.  Every time I fell he would pick me up and put me back.  By the time I was crying the damage was done.  I remember having to go to school the next day.  I actually had a hand print shaped bruise on my face and both of my eyes were full of blood from the head trauma.

By the time this incident happened I had stopped feeling or careing.  I laughed it off when people asked what happened.  I told them I got in a fight with my sister.  They chose to believe my lies.

I remember fearing gym class because it meant getting undressed in front of people.  I blamed the welts across my back on my sister.  The bruises on my sister, the scars on my sister.

I remember the holes in the walls.  I remember the cops taking us away.  I remember that my dad never touched my sister.  The few times he went after my mom I did everything I could to get in the way.  Mom got me and my sister a few times.  Slaps, hair pulling, being thrown agains the walls.  For some reason she never scared me.  I even laughed at her more than once when she tried to hurt me.

I was a smart kid.  I was "lucky" and I never had to study.  I loved sports and art, reading was my only escape.  I was pretty good at everything I tried.  Again- I was lucky.

I ran to the first man that would treat me like shit.  I was 15 and drunk.  He raped me and then passed me to his friends.  That's when the drugs became a daily thing.  I had to be numb.  For some reason every guy I found for the next 10 years abused me sexually- tell me I wasn't searching for the type.

I look back and see the signs-
       I never slept through the night, I still don't without pills.
       I wet my bed until I was way past the appropriate age.  I actually went through a phase where I never   made it to the bathroom on time, mom made me wear a diaper in elementary school.
      I was a hypochondriac.  I went to the school nurse every single day looking for someone to care about me and be nice to me.  The nurses were always good to me.
      By middle school I discovered food as a way to feel better.  But I got too fat, too quick and mom wouldn't let me eat actual food.  I was put on a liquid diet at 11 or 12.  Imagine a powder packet of slim fast for lunch in middle school.
      I don't know how old I was when I started hurting myself.  It seems pain is all I ever knew.  Cutting has stayed with me for the past 23 years but I tried it all.  Burning worked, kinda.  Hitting things was my first fix.  I loved it.  I broke my own bones because I hit things so hard and repetitivley.

Why didn't anyone else pick up on it?  I wish I knew.  Drinking worked for a while.  Illegal drugs worked the best but we all know where that ends up.  I stick to the legal drugs now (mostly). 

I found myself hating eveything and everyone in my world.  Hating myself the most.  The best thing that could have happened to me was ending up in some really good, well known psych hospitals.  One had a trauma unit for women and it changed my life.  I met other women like me.  I met other women who cut like me, drank like me, drugged like me and most importantly felt like me. 

Knowing that I am not alone in the world has saved my life.  That and having a husband who knows absolutely everything about me, and still loves me- is why I am alive today.