Growing up I loved Morticia Adaams. She was sexy, confident, madly in love with her husband, a witch, and incredibly strange. In high school I assumed that being like this fictional character meant dressing in black and being "misunderstood". I've been a "grown up" now for about 14 or 15 months now and at one point worried that the hippie I've become is not the girl who wanted to be an Adaams growing up. Once I started eating differently (try eating healthy while selling deep fried gas station food, it gets you some pretty interesting looks), not wearing make-up and being indifferent about commercially important holidays I realized that my soulmate and I truly do embody the Adaams family spirit. We believe that food is medicine. I put honey on all my cuts and burns and if I suspect something fungal or bacterial I'll slap a hunk of coconut oil on the infection, rub it in until the oil melts and go on my merry way.
The reason why I have made this change in my life has a lot to do with a friend of mine who has had an incredible experience healing herself with food (more on that later...like next year) and a Doctor named Natasha Campbell-McBride who discusses GAPS and confidently states that most disorders are related to the foods we eat.
If you have a couple hours to spare (or an hour and then another hour some other day) please watch these videos. I find that they are very important and if nothing else it will help you (although I highly doubt anybody cares too much) understand why I live the way I do, I prepare everything at home from yeast for bread and soda to hummus to pizza sticks and it all stemmed from what this woman had to say.
End Transmission.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Star Date: December 17, 2013 Re: Coming Soon
I was browsing through some of my old posts because it has been such a long time since I've had internet access and I was curious to see what the old me was up to, and I realized that in October of last year I ambitiously stated that I was going to come out with a collection of Alice in Wonderland based stories....the thought made me laugh a little. To think that I was so determined to twist another writer's vision is a little absurd. I've decided that I am still going to publish "Down the Rabbit Hole", only, I'm not going to write a plethora of Lewis based shorts. Instead I am going to accumulate all of my post-awakening work (everything I finished while I was in high school) and let the readership take a peek at how much I've changed since then.
The writing is going to be kind of bad, I'm not planning on doing too much editing just an overall content check to make sure that I didn't do anything like change a character's name half way through the short, and it's going to be pretty bad. My plan is to try and keep the price as low as possible. When self publishing through Amazon, your book has to be at least 99 cents, so on a bad day, you'll have to pay a full dollar for this accumulation of junk. I'm going to try to keep up with my promotions as much as I can and have it free as often as possible.
I'm a little nervous about this project, which I will begin working on after I finish my current one (which is to remain a secret until I'm absolutely sure it's ready for the public) but I think it'll be a little therapeutic to get all of my angsty grossness and clutter out of my proverbial closet.
End Transmission.
The writing is going to be kind of bad, I'm not planning on doing too much editing just an overall content check to make sure that I didn't do anything like change a character's name half way through the short, and it's going to be pretty bad. My plan is to try and keep the price as low as possible. When self publishing through Amazon, your book has to be at least 99 cents, so on a bad day, you'll have to pay a full dollar for this accumulation of junk. I'm going to try to keep up with my promotions as much as I can and have it free as often as possible.
I'm a little nervous about this project, which I will begin working on after I finish my current one (which is to remain a secret until I'm absolutely sure it's ready for the public) but I think it'll be a little therapeutic to get all of my angsty grossness and clutter out of my proverbial closet.
End Transmission.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Star Date: December 15, 2013
Today I finally did my "homework" and watched a couple of videos that both my parents (but my dad mentioned it first) told me I needed to watch. It sounds kind of lame, but Eddie Murphy has a lot to say and made me cry a little bit. The first video I watched is called Red Light, and the second one is called Temporary. Another one that's worth listening to is Patience from the movie Dream Girls. I feel like real music is the best way for souls to communicate, that's how know it's real music and not just words and sounds: when it has soul it's music. For anybody who wants to take fifteen minutes to listen to some truly powerful, soulful music, here ya go :)
Have a nice day.
End Transmission.
Have a nice day.
End Transmission.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Star Date: December 1, 2013 pt. 2 Garage Sale
So what now? I lost nearly 5 years of my life traumatizing relationship. For some reason, at the time I thought that as soon as I escaped my cage, I'd be able to forget that it all happened and go back to being me. The thing is, I wasn't even me when I entered into the relationship. I was thirteen years old, I was just a kid who had no clue what I was doing. The scary part that They never talk to you about is that abuse of any kind is traumatic and needs to be dealt with. No one ever mentions that PTSD can happen to civilians who have never seen war...although, I spent nearly 5 years trying to stay alive, so I guess that is kind of a war.
I feel damaged now. My brain doesn't work the way I think it should. I struggle with self-esteem issue every day, even though my soulmate tells me how beautiful I am and treats me with respect, love and warmth everyday. The voice in my head (no, I'm not crazy, I know that everybody has a voice in the back of their head that tells them what to expect) tells me that someday my soulmate will wake up and realize that I am all the horrible things that "Jess" verbalized.
I've seen him a handful of times since we broke up, (he comes into my gas station) and it evokes a physical reaction. I begin to shake and my stomach grows queasy. One day I saw his truck in the parking lot and hid in the walk-in freezer in the deli for five minutes. The day that I decided to ask my close friend for help, "Jess" came through my line and I almost threw up on the counter. I still worry that he'll show up at my place of work or my home and do something unexpected. I still think about what bad could happen, and it has been a year...I thought that I could turn my back on it and it wouldn't be a part of my life anymore, but I was wrong.
So how do I cope? It's been hard, but I have a couple of techniques, two of which were taught to me by my mentor and friend, the other I decided to try because I was becoming irrational at the littlest things. (One of my biggest problems is the need to feel perfect.)
*Light In, Dark Out: This one is the least complicated in my opinion, but I still have a hard time with it. It's a breathing exercise. When the darkness clouds up my mind I breathe in and imagine light entering my mind. Then I exhale and imagine the darkness leaving my body. But since I have a hard time with this one, I also write it down.
Time Out Journal: Instead of saying the bad things that are being repeated inside my head out loud, I write them down. It helps me get those bad thoughts out of my head without putting them into the universe (if it sounds really hippie, it probably is, but it works.) This was my idea to help with my recovery.
*The Chair: Sit in a room (or your car if you don't have privacy at home) and talk to an empty chair as though the person who hurt you is in that chair. This is a way to retaliate and put your energy back into the universe without actually facing your former aggressor. It's hard, I'm not going to lie, and it sounds silly. I've only done it once, which is bad, I need to get better about doing my "homework", but the one session helped.
A warning about the chair: If you do this exercise, your abuse might start to manifest itself. For me, I start getting massive headaches (this happens during most stressful situations now, I mentally relate stress, arguing or not being perfect with getting hurt) I think it has to do with the fact that "Jess" choked me, suffocated me, and hit me in the head a lot, not to mention that when these things would happen I'd reach for a bottle of acetaminophen. So just be aware that this exercise might cause a physical reaction.
I posted this so that other men and women, boys and girls of any type can start their recovery process at home like I did, because I haven't gone to a professional yet. The idea of that kind of help still scares the living daylights out of me.
We are strong, We will overcome.
End Transmission.
Star Date: December 1, 2013 Cleaning Out My Closet
Growing up, my
dad always told me two things. "Don't become a statistic," i.e., don't
get pregnant, don't drop out, don't become an abused teen. And, "If I
ever find out that you're lying to me, it'll break my heart." I'm sorry
Daddy.
My mother and I were eating lunch together at my childhood home around this time last year, talking about my ex. When the subject of how he treated me came up I responded with, "You have no idea mom, no idea."
"Give me an idea, Emy," she asked as I bit into a sandwich.
I could only shake my head and mumble, "He was just a really bad person."
"Please tell me, I'm your mom," she pleaded.
So I told her, trying to keep calm and remain tear free as I gave my mother a peak behind doors that I'd kept shut for five years.
"Did his mom know about this?"
I had managed a pretty steady facade when I had relayed previous events to her, but this simple question was my breaking point that day.
"You know the worst part mom," I cried, "was when she asked questions, he'd tell her that I was the abusive one. He made me out to be a monster."
Later that evening, after I had gone home, she informed my father of the huge bomb I had dropped. I wish I had been brave enough to tell him myself.
My mom was the one who suggested that I write this. I thank both of them for teaching me to be strong. I wrote the following tale later that week, showed it to a close family friend and mentor (which was sort of my way of letting her know that I'd been victimized) and then let it gather virtual dust on my computer. I wanted to get it published in some magazine somewhere, but working full time leaves little time to write query letters to every magazine that might possibly care, so I decided to post it here. This is a part of my at home therapy, I haven't talked to a professional about what happened, only the people close to me and it is taking a long time to recover. I can't go on without a shout out to my mentor for helping me realize that this needs to be shared.
*
I was 13 and hurting. I was different and refused to conform. A mixed girl in a mostly Wonderbread town, a self-proclaimed wiccan with dark make-up and a dark wardrobe who only had a few friends throughout middle school (and it seemed like my circle of friends was always shrinking) and was more interested in writing and staying in than watching the big game and going out. I met Jess when a new friend had invited me to stay the night at her house. There were three of us, and we snuck out to meet up with Jess because my friend (I'll call her Rose) had a crush on him.
Jess was mysterious and made my heart race. I thought I was so cool, sneaking out to meet a boy and texting a different boy (who is insignificant to my story at this point). My hair was big, I was wearing heavy, dark make-up and to my surprise the boy who I only met because of Rose, was interested in me. Jess was white, and blonde with blue eyes, but he wore make-up and the same shade of nail polish as I did. We were both teased for being different and I felt like we were kindred spirits. He was an artist and a poet, so I thought we'd get along great.
When Jess and I began our courtship, I was insanely happy. No boy had really ever taken an interest in me before. I was being introduced to the sensation that I now know as lust. Yet in the midst of my dopey first-legitimate-relationship-ever euphoria, I ignored the "bros before hos" rule and let my friends fall to the wayside one-by-one. None of them liked Jess and he had somehow managed to occupy all of my free time. Granted, there were some "friends" that I would have grown apart from anyways, but there is one I wish I hadn't lost.
From the very beginning Jess was poison and our relationshit was toxic. But I refused to see that until it was too late.
Jump ahead several months. Things had been violent between Jess and I, on both ends, but I thought that I was happy. What's a few yelling matches and bruises if you're happy? I had made a heart out of cornstarch, water, and paint as a gift for having lasted six-months. One thing led to another and we began to fight, again. Then the heart that had taken days to craft, dry and paint was thrown to the hardwood floor and shattered. I should have ended it then, but I was young and figured that things would get better. After this particular fight my parents tried to separate me from Jess for the summer, especially after they found out that he had made suicide threats during a lot of our fights. This suspension only lasted a month.
Our relationship was filled with contention from the very beginning, I just didn't realize it until after I stopped biting, scratching and hitting instead of verbalizing my rage. After I realized that hurting to emphasize your feelings is not okay, it became obvious that Jess wasn't changing. He wasn't growing up, and the little good times we had faded to mostly bad ones fairly quickly. I was a "whore", "slut", or a "fat pig", even when we weren't fighthing. Jess spat venom at me that made me burst into tears instantly, which classified me as a "cry baby".
At first it was easy to hide bruises and easily masked mental wounds. Then, one night we were hanging out at his mom's house and she had left the living room to shower, while his step-dad watched TV in their bedroom. Jess took advantage of the alone time and confiscated my phone to look through it because he was paranoid. I begged and begged for him to give it back, and when he finally did, he threw it and it hit me in the middle of the forehead. A bump formed instantaneously and apologies spewed from his mouth. He wasn't sorry because of what he did, but because he didn't want to get caught. For whatever reason, I told everybody that I walked into the bottom corner of a cupboard (I'm clumsy enough that no one thought twice about my story).
It happened a lot more than it should have. He'd hurt me in some obvious way and then get overwhelmingly apologetic and beg for me to lie to cover his ass. I should have chosen not to go along with it, but I was so afraid of what Jess would do if I ratted him out that I decided it was easier to lie and pretend like everything was fine than tell the truth and get help. I started keeping too many secrets from the people who deserved to know and could have helped. I felt like a rare, exotic bird that had been caged, or a butterfly that was collected to put on display. Nevertheless, I thought I could handle it, I figured that once highschool was over I could just run away from the situation and never look back. I had myself convinced that dealing with things until I graduated would be easier than telling someone and getting the police or school system involved and being safe.
I still thank the universe that I'm alive nearly everyday. There were quite a few times that Jess nearly killed me by strangling me or suffocating me with a pillow. My life was horrible and I wanted to die. I'd pop handfuls of acetaminophen to numb the pain with the hopes that maybe I'd be hospitalized or put out of my misery. Jess had me making his food, taking off his shoes and socks after school and putting them on for him when I had to leave. If I wanted to go to sleep, I had to wait for hours after my body and brain were exhausted to wait on him hand on foot. If I told him to do it himself or dozed off, he'd hurt me until I complied. If I cried or struggled he'd hurt me, trying to force me to be quiet, because he was ever worried about being caught. Sometimes I'd pretend to sleep just so that I could ignore him, but that brought on the blows too.
In July of the summer between my sophomore and junior year, his parents took us on a trip to Seattle. I thought that maybe things would be okay, that maybe I'd get a vacation on my vacation. I don't remember most of the trip, but I do know that nothing was different. I was surly and couldn't wait to get home. The warmth that belongs in a relationship was gone and we were just going through the motions. One morning in Seattle, we began to fight and Jess hit my shin so hard that a large, bruised, lump formed and it hurt to walk.Jess made me tell his parents that I had tripped and fell into an end table in our room.
When we got back from Washington that summer Jess had been gifted his first car. My parents' car had been forfeited to the tow shop here because they had been going through their own problems, so Jess stayed with me at my parents house for a while and drove them around to help them get a new car. Things had changed drastically. Jess thought that my parents were screw ups and mentioned it to me everyday. How, because they clean for a living, they were low lifes and how the decisions they made had made them bad people. He also accused me of doing obscene things with my parents, just to see me cry and gag. These comments about my family hurt worse than any bruise or bump, I was at the end of my rope.
At the end of the summer I'd decided that I'd had enough and attempted to break up with him. My parents had gotten a new car and I didn't need to keep him around anymore. I can't remember how, if it had been threats of suicide or the threat to send any specail pictures he had of me to everybody in his contacts list, but somehow he had found a way to weasle another couple of years out of me.
I was broken and cold, and lusting after "love" and warmth. I'd never before considered extra "marital" relationships but I was at my wits end. I began flirting a little more and attempted to make friends. The classes that I didn't have with Jess were my time to socialize and flaunt my figure a little bit. I was warming up to becoming what I would now call a monster.
Junior prom was an interesting time for me. I ordered a black, goth-lolita dress online and was super excited because my only two friends were coming with. Dre, my best friend since I was seven, and Mary, who had moved to my hometown that year, met Jess and I at a faux-fancy Italian restaurant. It was miserable. Dre and Mary both saw that my relationship was unhealthy. At the prom Jess sat down, and, while I desperately wanted to dance, I knew that if I did what I wanted he would make me suffer. We weren't there for very long. I wanted to dance and Jess just wanted to leave.
It wasn't until the end of junior year that I fell...not in love, but in lust for a better life wih a mysterious senior (I'll call him Chester) in my math class. We became friends and by the end of the summer, had both expressed a dislike for our relationships and an excitement for each other. From the end of August to mid-October I was insanely happy again. Jess didn't know about my (for lack of a better word) affair, and the abuse had tapered off because Jess had finally gotten a summer job (which was the only job that he had during our relationship. His other sources of income were his parents and me). I knew that I had found something better, so the small bit of harshness that was left seemed bearable.
Then Chester decided that what we were doing was wrong. If I could, I'd thank him for our time together and his decision to end it with me and be with his girlfriend. But at the time of the end of our affair, I was crushed. I couldn't eat, cried all the time and was desperate to at least just be friends with the boy (which couldn't be because of the monster that had been brewing inside of me).
Then the abuse dwindled a little. I was spending as little time as possible with Jess and asking my parents to say "No, you can't hang out with Jess" so that I could go hang out with the friends I made second semester. As the abuse crescendo-ed again, going from only verbal to being so aggressive that I was afraid for my life, I accidentally reunited with an old friend (I'll refer to him as Eric). He listened and comforted me, and being broken, the monster in my soul looked for love in him and thought that I had found it. It didn't last long, but I was so desperate for a way out that I clung to it for as long as I could.
Senior prom, I went with a group of friends sans Jess and felt no remorse because he had a second girlfriend (which I approved of because Megan distracted him, even though we didn't break up). I danced the entire time. It was the most fun that I'd had the entire time I was in high school. That was right around the time that my monster emerged. I knew that I could control the world if I wanted to and played the game so well that Jess never truly knew what I was capable of behind his back. I entered into a terrifying stage of my life where I was toying with the boys that I knew. I was flirting with Eric while trying to rekindle a relationship with Chester. In the middle of this I had made friends with a stoner-surfer boy who I'd known since middle school (I'll go with the name Daniel). And just like Nancy from the Showtime series "Weeds" I started stringing Daniel along too (no sex, just talk and once there was a make-out session). As graduation neared, I began to worry less. Soon, I could be free and none of it would matter.
One day before we graduated, Jess and I were walking to the car when he mentioned how hot a classmate of ours was. I immaturely responded by yelling about how much of a pig he was for saying that to me. The monster in me enjoyed yelling and causing a scene because that part of me hoped that maybe someone would intervene. When we got into his truck, he backhanded me, giving me a fat lip. I told everyone that I'd punched myself in the face trying to zip up my hoodie (because I'd done it before. The zipper on that hoodie was kind of broken so I had to pull it with some force. But I'd never busted my own lip). Another time, I think it was after this incident but it could have been before, he hit me in the face and left a lump above my eyebrow and a nice purple bruise on my eyelid that I had to work very hard to conceal with eyeshadow. I blamed these injuries on my large, overzealous black lab.
Graduation was on my birthday. I was pretty upset for a while because my parents viewed the ceremony as mandatory. But Jess wasn't going, so I was thankful for the reprieve. But after receiving my diploma, celebrating with family and friends (I had invited Eric to my party instead of Jess, in my head Eric was the one who was supposed to be there), and opening presents, Jess "needed" to see me (Eric had already left because his girlfriend thought he was having dinner with his mom). I had pushed my luck to it's limits. When I got into his car he unleashed his anger with a vengance that made me wonder if I'd ever see the people who had come to my graduation party again. This, too, was a common occurance. If I was driving he'd punch me in the right leg until it hurt to accelerate or brake, warning me not to cry or scream or make a scene. If he was the one driving, then my left leg would become so bruised that I'd wonder if I'd be able to get out of the car.
The last handful of months of our so called relationship was particularly violent. I planned to buy a car (because the wonderful POS Station Wagon I had driven all through high school had finally died in late April) and disappear. I'd stop talking to Jess, change my phone number, and maybe go to the women's shelter to finally seek the help I needed. When the day finally came, I bought a beautiful, red, 1982 5-speed that I didn't know how to operate (I'd later learn that this car belonged to my soulmate's friend, it was then sold to the guy that I bought the car from...small world isn't it?). That same day, my parents' car stopped working. I let them borrow my new ride until they got their situation figured out (the car they had bought the summer before my junior year turned out to be more of a lemon than we had realized and they had to get yet another new-to-us vehicle). I didn't mind, a family is supposed to stick together in times of hardship, but Jess made sure to add it to the list of things that made my parents losers.
Soon, I told myself, just a little bit longer and it will all be okay.
When I got my car back I let Jess teach me how to drive stick shift. One day I refused to go up a (then) daunting slope in an awkward parking lot, I was still learning and unsure of what I was doing. Jess was enraged when I showed some backbone and didn't listen to his command. He hurt me for not listening. I demanded that he get out of my car, and he refused, making things worse. A neighbor of his heard the commotion, boldly walked to my car and asked if everything was alright. We lied, claiming that I was frustrated because I had stalled my car. Then Jess told me to drive away to keep up appearances. Sobbing, in pain, and just wanting to be left alone, I had gone into auto-pilot mode and wasn't really paying attention.
This is how I managed to lose my car before the license plates arrived in the mail. I pulled out to cross the street when a car was coming down a one-way and I got T-boned. The accident wasn't bad, no one was injured, but my car suffered, and because it was my fault there was no real way for me to fix the damage. The next day I got a call back for an interview. I eagerly started my job as a clerk at the gas station (My first day was on the fourth of July to put the timeline in perspective). Every 8 hours there was a chunk of time that I didn't have to be near Jess. The abuse continued, and most of my money was wasted on keeping him happy. Worst of all, he had brought another third party into our relationship after Megan broke up with him that month.
And then I met my Pumpkin, a tall gorgeous man with kind blue eyes and a mop of brown hair. From the first moment i saw him, I knew that I loved him (although it had taken a month or so for me to get his phone number and admit to myself that my feelings were valid.). He had made going to work that much better. When I had finally manned up and non-chalantly asked for his number, I had decided that if nothing more I wanted to be friends with him.
Pumpkin and I began texting constantly. Then he'd come see me while I was at work because I could never sneak away from home to see him. The introduction of this fabulous being, my soulmate, into my life made me not want to take the pills anymore. I stopped hurting myself so that I could live to see the day when I would open my eyes and see his face. Finally, after I confessed to Pumpkin that I love him and he concurred, I started finding excuses and blatantly lying so that I could see him. I felt safe, and I had this feeling in my heart that things would get better. Pumpkin and I had had several of the "Why are you there instead of here with me if you love me" conversations and I had a deadline in my head. I wanted to be living with my soulmate by December 21st 2012, because if doomsday really was coming, I wanted to go through it with him.
Breanne (Jess's girlfriend) had a lot of problems. Jess would bring her over to my parents house (because he couldn't let his parents know that he had a girlfriend who wasn't me) and they'd fool around when I was there and have sex if I was out. He'd bring her over when she was in her darkest places too...she nearly overdosed in my bed twice. The first time made me an hour late for work (but hey, Jess wasn't hurting me and didn't notice if I was going to hang out with Pumpkin outside of work). The second time we took Breanne to the hospital. After leaving Breanne and Jess in the ER I fled to Pumpkin's house because what I'd just witnessed was too much for me to bear. Emergency rooms are terrifying...the night we went there happened to be a couple of other patients who were screaming in agony, not to mention the sight of Breanne high out of her mind on cough syrup, Tylenol and oxys while being hooked up to machines and pumped with fluids to ensure that she didn't die.
This story finally comes to a close at my parents' house, where I had been staying with Jess and the more than occasional Breanne. I didn't complain about him bringing her over, her presence kept the attention off of me and gave me the time to text Pumpkin without worrying about getting caught. Yet, despite my lack of concern, it was still my parents house and they were getting burned out by the inconsistant visiting times. They had never expected their house to turn into a youth hostil.
In a strange twist of fate, my father's war with alcoholism (which he ia now winning) saved me. Jess and Breanne were out of the house and my parents were drunk and fighting. I couldn't deal with the negativity and texted Pumpkin to come and get me. My mom told me to make sure that Jess knew that he couldn't come back to their house. I never looked back. Having been given the chance to fly, I soared.
Pumpkin saved my life, not only because I am no longer at risk for being severely injured, but also because I no longer fell the need to touch the acetaminophen that I used to shovel down my throat to feel numb.
I wish that I would have gotten help, and forced help upon Jess instead of fleeing from the terror, but it's hard to admit that you need help when in your head you're strong enough to deal with the problem.
I would never wish my nightmare on anyone. No girl or boy deserves to be treated like trash or brainwashed into feeling worthless. No child should ever purposely alienate themselves from their parents. Mine didn't know about what was going on because I didn't want them to know. Furthermore, I had also pushed away people who cared about me. People I've known since I was seven years old. Being trapped turned me into a cheating, lying, secretive monster. I wish I had gotten help, butI'm sfe and happy now and that's all that matters.
Now, from the sounds of what you just read, you might draw the conclusion that I need a man to be happy. However, this is not the case. No one needs a special someone in their life to complete them or in order to be happy. Happiness is a contentment and satisfaction with your life, and when you find someone you can truly share your life with who doesn't subtract from the contentment and satisfaction, it makes things that much better. I had already gone through the rebound and emotional detachment from Jess. I had wormed my way into poisonous relationship after poisonous relationship, and then I met a man who took my words away with his mere presence.
Remember, it doesn't matter when you get out of an abusive relationship, what matters is that you get out of it. It's never too late. At 19 years old, I know that abuse doesn't wait for you to grow up and be strong enough to know what to do. Abuse is a boa constrictor that wraps you in a friendly hug and then slowly begins to suffocate you. The only way to be free is to kill the beast. If you become the victim of violence, whether it's abuse in your family or a relationship, or if you are sexually abused or assaulted, remember that it's not your fault. It doesn't make you weak or any less of a person. Whomever is treating you like garbage is committing a crime.
You are strong. You can overcome. Don't be afraid to ask for help, it will save your life.
About the Picture: The photo is of a necklace I made my Senior year during a technology based kind of spirit week (I think it might have been called geek week, but I'm not sure anymore). My English class was in the library (or maybe it was history...it was so long ago) and there was a table set up where you could make jewelry (or whatever) out of old keyboard keys...I made a couple because I needed a break from whichever assignment, but this one was the most profound. *1.N3ED.2.esc...It reads "I need to escape". On the outside I was being creative and artistic, I love weird things like that, but on the inside, I was crying out. I didn't want to be captured, killed and put on display like a rare butterfly, I wanted to fly.
My mother and I were eating lunch together at my childhood home around this time last year, talking about my ex. When the subject of how he treated me came up I responded with, "You have no idea mom, no idea."
"Give me an idea, Emy," she asked as I bit into a sandwich.
I could only shake my head and mumble, "He was just a really bad person."
"Please tell me, I'm your mom," she pleaded.
So I told her, trying to keep calm and remain tear free as I gave my mother a peak behind doors that I'd kept shut for five years.
"Did his mom know about this?"
I had managed a pretty steady facade when I had relayed previous events to her, but this simple question was my breaking point that day.
"You know the worst part mom," I cried, "was when she asked questions, he'd tell her that I was the abusive one. He made me out to be a monster."
Later that evening, after I had gone home, she informed my father of the huge bomb I had dropped. I wish I had been brave enough to tell him myself.
My mom was the one who suggested that I write this. I thank both of them for teaching me to be strong. I wrote the following tale later that week, showed it to a close family friend and mentor (which was sort of my way of letting her know that I'd been victimized) and then let it gather virtual dust on my computer. I wanted to get it published in some magazine somewhere, but working full time leaves little time to write query letters to every magazine that might possibly care, so I decided to post it here. This is a part of my at home therapy, I haven't talked to a professional about what happened, only the people close to me and it is taking a long time to recover. I can't go on without a shout out to my mentor for helping me realize that this needs to be shared.
*
I was 13 and hurting. I was different and refused to conform. A mixed girl in a mostly Wonderbread town, a self-proclaimed wiccan with dark make-up and a dark wardrobe who only had a few friends throughout middle school (and it seemed like my circle of friends was always shrinking) and was more interested in writing and staying in than watching the big game and going out. I met Jess when a new friend had invited me to stay the night at her house. There were three of us, and we snuck out to meet up with Jess because my friend (I'll call her Rose) had a crush on him.
Jess was mysterious and made my heart race. I thought I was so cool, sneaking out to meet a boy and texting a different boy (who is insignificant to my story at this point). My hair was big, I was wearing heavy, dark make-up and to my surprise the boy who I only met because of Rose, was interested in me. Jess was white, and blonde with blue eyes, but he wore make-up and the same shade of nail polish as I did. We were both teased for being different and I felt like we were kindred spirits. He was an artist and a poet, so I thought we'd get along great.
When Jess and I began our courtship, I was insanely happy. No boy had really ever taken an interest in me before. I was being introduced to the sensation that I now know as lust. Yet in the midst of my dopey first-legitimate-relationship-ever euphoria, I ignored the "bros before hos" rule and let my friends fall to the wayside one-by-one. None of them liked Jess and he had somehow managed to occupy all of my free time. Granted, there were some "friends" that I would have grown apart from anyways, but there is one I wish I hadn't lost.
From the very beginning Jess was poison and our relationshit was toxic. But I refused to see that until it was too late.
Jump ahead several months. Things had been violent between Jess and I, on both ends, but I thought that I was happy. What's a few yelling matches and bruises if you're happy? I had made a heart out of cornstarch, water, and paint as a gift for having lasted six-months. One thing led to another and we began to fight, again. Then the heart that had taken days to craft, dry and paint was thrown to the hardwood floor and shattered. I should have ended it then, but I was young and figured that things would get better. After this particular fight my parents tried to separate me from Jess for the summer, especially after they found out that he had made suicide threats during a lot of our fights. This suspension only lasted a month.
Our relationship was filled with contention from the very beginning, I just didn't realize it until after I stopped biting, scratching and hitting instead of verbalizing my rage. After I realized that hurting to emphasize your feelings is not okay, it became obvious that Jess wasn't changing. He wasn't growing up, and the little good times we had faded to mostly bad ones fairly quickly. I was a "whore", "slut", or a "fat pig", even when we weren't fighthing. Jess spat venom at me that made me burst into tears instantly, which classified me as a "cry baby".
At first it was easy to hide bruises and easily masked mental wounds. Then, one night we were hanging out at his mom's house and she had left the living room to shower, while his step-dad watched TV in their bedroom. Jess took advantage of the alone time and confiscated my phone to look through it because he was paranoid. I begged and begged for him to give it back, and when he finally did, he threw it and it hit me in the middle of the forehead. A bump formed instantaneously and apologies spewed from his mouth. He wasn't sorry because of what he did, but because he didn't want to get caught. For whatever reason, I told everybody that I walked into the bottom corner of a cupboard (I'm clumsy enough that no one thought twice about my story).
It happened a lot more than it should have. He'd hurt me in some obvious way and then get overwhelmingly apologetic and beg for me to lie to cover his ass. I should have chosen not to go along with it, but I was so afraid of what Jess would do if I ratted him out that I decided it was easier to lie and pretend like everything was fine than tell the truth and get help. I started keeping too many secrets from the people who deserved to know and could have helped. I felt like a rare, exotic bird that had been caged, or a butterfly that was collected to put on display. Nevertheless, I thought I could handle it, I figured that once highschool was over I could just run away from the situation and never look back. I had myself convinced that dealing with things until I graduated would be easier than telling someone and getting the police or school system involved and being safe.
I still thank the universe that I'm alive nearly everyday. There were quite a few times that Jess nearly killed me by strangling me or suffocating me with a pillow. My life was horrible and I wanted to die. I'd pop handfuls of acetaminophen to numb the pain with the hopes that maybe I'd be hospitalized or put out of my misery. Jess had me making his food, taking off his shoes and socks after school and putting them on for him when I had to leave. If I wanted to go to sleep, I had to wait for hours after my body and brain were exhausted to wait on him hand on foot. If I told him to do it himself or dozed off, he'd hurt me until I complied. If I cried or struggled he'd hurt me, trying to force me to be quiet, because he was ever worried about being caught. Sometimes I'd pretend to sleep just so that I could ignore him, but that brought on the blows too.
In July of the summer between my sophomore and junior year, his parents took us on a trip to Seattle. I thought that maybe things would be okay, that maybe I'd get a vacation on my vacation. I don't remember most of the trip, but I do know that nothing was different. I was surly and couldn't wait to get home. The warmth that belongs in a relationship was gone and we were just going through the motions. One morning in Seattle, we began to fight and Jess hit my shin so hard that a large, bruised, lump formed and it hurt to walk.Jess made me tell his parents that I had tripped and fell into an end table in our room.
When we got back from Washington that summer Jess had been gifted his first car. My parents' car had been forfeited to the tow shop here because they had been going through their own problems, so Jess stayed with me at my parents house for a while and drove them around to help them get a new car. Things had changed drastically. Jess thought that my parents were screw ups and mentioned it to me everyday. How, because they clean for a living, they were low lifes and how the decisions they made had made them bad people. He also accused me of doing obscene things with my parents, just to see me cry and gag. These comments about my family hurt worse than any bruise or bump, I was at the end of my rope.
At the end of the summer I'd decided that I'd had enough and attempted to break up with him. My parents had gotten a new car and I didn't need to keep him around anymore. I can't remember how, if it had been threats of suicide or the threat to send any specail pictures he had of me to everybody in his contacts list, but somehow he had found a way to weasle another couple of years out of me.
I was broken and cold, and lusting after "love" and warmth. I'd never before considered extra "marital" relationships but I was at my wits end. I began flirting a little more and attempted to make friends. The classes that I didn't have with Jess were my time to socialize and flaunt my figure a little bit. I was warming up to becoming what I would now call a monster.
Junior prom was an interesting time for me. I ordered a black, goth-lolita dress online and was super excited because my only two friends were coming with. Dre, my best friend since I was seven, and Mary, who had moved to my hometown that year, met Jess and I at a faux-fancy Italian restaurant. It was miserable. Dre and Mary both saw that my relationship was unhealthy. At the prom Jess sat down, and, while I desperately wanted to dance, I knew that if I did what I wanted he would make me suffer. We weren't there for very long. I wanted to dance and Jess just wanted to leave.
It wasn't until the end of junior year that I fell...not in love, but in lust for a better life wih a mysterious senior (I'll call him Chester) in my math class. We became friends and by the end of the summer, had both expressed a dislike for our relationships and an excitement for each other. From the end of August to mid-October I was insanely happy again. Jess didn't know about my (for lack of a better word) affair, and the abuse had tapered off because Jess had finally gotten a summer job (which was the only job that he had during our relationship. His other sources of income were his parents and me). I knew that I had found something better, so the small bit of harshness that was left seemed bearable.
Then Chester decided that what we were doing was wrong. If I could, I'd thank him for our time together and his decision to end it with me and be with his girlfriend. But at the time of the end of our affair, I was crushed. I couldn't eat, cried all the time and was desperate to at least just be friends with the boy (which couldn't be because of the monster that had been brewing inside of me).
Then the abuse dwindled a little. I was spending as little time as possible with Jess and asking my parents to say "No, you can't hang out with Jess" so that I could go hang out with the friends I made second semester. As the abuse crescendo-ed again, going from only verbal to being so aggressive that I was afraid for my life, I accidentally reunited with an old friend (I'll refer to him as Eric). He listened and comforted me, and being broken, the monster in my soul looked for love in him and thought that I had found it. It didn't last long, but I was so desperate for a way out that I clung to it for as long as I could.
Senior prom, I went with a group of friends sans Jess and felt no remorse because he had a second girlfriend (which I approved of because Megan distracted him, even though we didn't break up). I danced the entire time. It was the most fun that I'd had the entire time I was in high school. That was right around the time that my monster emerged. I knew that I could control the world if I wanted to and played the game so well that Jess never truly knew what I was capable of behind his back. I entered into a terrifying stage of my life where I was toying with the boys that I knew. I was flirting with Eric while trying to rekindle a relationship with Chester. In the middle of this I had made friends with a stoner-surfer boy who I'd known since middle school (I'll go with the name Daniel). And just like Nancy from the Showtime series "Weeds" I started stringing Daniel along too (no sex, just talk and once there was a make-out session). As graduation neared, I began to worry less. Soon, I could be free and none of it would matter.
One day before we graduated, Jess and I were walking to the car when he mentioned how hot a classmate of ours was. I immaturely responded by yelling about how much of a pig he was for saying that to me. The monster in me enjoyed yelling and causing a scene because that part of me hoped that maybe someone would intervene. When we got into his truck, he backhanded me, giving me a fat lip. I told everyone that I'd punched myself in the face trying to zip up my hoodie (because I'd done it before. The zipper on that hoodie was kind of broken so I had to pull it with some force. But I'd never busted my own lip). Another time, I think it was after this incident but it could have been before, he hit me in the face and left a lump above my eyebrow and a nice purple bruise on my eyelid that I had to work very hard to conceal with eyeshadow. I blamed these injuries on my large, overzealous black lab.
Graduation was on my birthday. I was pretty upset for a while because my parents viewed the ceremony as mandatory. But Jess wasn't going, so I was thankful for the reprieve. But after receiving my diploma, celebrating with family and friends (I had invited Eric to my party instead of Jess, in my head Eric was the one who was supposed to be there), and opening presents, Jess "needed" to see me (Eric had already left because his girlfriend thought he was having dinner with his mom). I had pushed my luck to it's limits. When I got into his car he unleashed his anger with a vengance that made me wonder if I'd ever see the people who had come to my graduation party again. This, too, was a common occurance. If I was driving he'd punch me in the right leg until it hurt to accelerate or brake, warning me not to cry or scream or make a scene. If he was the one driving, then my left leg would become so bruised that I'd wonder if I'd be able to get out of the car.
The last handful of months of our so called relationship was particularly violent. I planned to buy a car (because the wonderful POS Station Wagon I had driven all through high school had finally died in late April) and disappear. I'd stop talking to Jess, change my phone number, and maybe go to the women's shelter to finally seek the help I needed. When the day finally came, I bought a beautiful, red, 1982 5-speed that I didn't know how to operate (I'd later learn that this car belonged to my soulmate's friend, it was then sold to the guy that I bought the car from...small world isn't it?). That same day, my parents' car stopped working. I let them borrow my new ride until they got their situation figured out (the car they had bought the summer before my junior year turned out to be more of a lemon than we had realized and they had to get yet another new-to-us vehicle). I didn't mind, a family is supposed to stick together in times of hardship, but Jess made sure to add it to the list of things that made my parents losers.
Soon, I told myself, just a little bit longer and it will all be okay.
When I got my car back I let Jess teach me how to drive stick shift. One day I refused to go up a (then) daunting slope in an awkward parking lot, I was still learning and unsure of what I was doing. Jess was enraged when I showed some backbone and didn't listen to his command. He hurt me for not listening. I demanded that he get out of my car, and he refused, making things worse. A neighbor of his heard the commotion, boldly walked to my car and asked if everything was alright. We lied, claiming that I was frustrated because I had stalled my car. Then Jess told me to drive away to keep up appearances. Sobbing, in pain, and just wanting to be left alone, I had gone into auto-pilot mode and wasn't really paying attention.
This is how I managed to lose my car before the license plates arrived in the mail. I pulled out to cross the street when a car was coming down a one-way and I got T-boned. The accident wasn't bad, no one was injured, but my car suffered, and because it was my fault there was no real way for me to fix the damage. The next day I got a call back for an interview. I eagerly started my job as a clerk at the gas station (My first day was on the fourth of July to put the timeline in perspective). Every 8 hours there was a chunk of time that I didn't have to be near Jess. The abuse continued, and most of my money was wasted on keeping him happy. Worst of all, he had brought another third party into our relationship after Megan broke up with him that month.
And then I met my Pumpkin, a tall gorgeous man with kind blue eyes and a mop of brown hair. From the first moment i saw him, I knew that I loved him (although it had taken a month or so for me to get his phone number and admit to myself that my feelings were valid.). He had made going to work that much better. When I had finally manned up and non-chalantly asked for his number, I had decided that if nothing more I wanted to be friends with him.
Pumpkin and I began texting constantly. Then he'd come see me while I was at work because I could never sneak away from home to see him. The introduction of this fabulous being, my soulmate, into my life made me not want to take the pills anymore. I stopped hurting myself so that I could live to see the day when I would open my eyes and see his face. Finally, after I confessed to Pumpkin that I love him and he concurred, I started finding excuses and blatantly lying so that I could see him. I felt safe, and I had this feeling in my heart that things would get better. Pumpkin and I had had several of the "Why are you there instead of here with me if you love me" conversations and I had a deadline in my head. I wanted to be living with my soulmate by December 21st 2012, because if doomsday really was coming, I wanted to go through it with him.
Breanne (Jess's girlfriend) had a lot of problems. Jess would bring her over to my parents house (because he couldn't let his parents know that he had a girlfriend who wasn't me) and they'd fool around when I was there and have sex if I was out. He'd bring her over when she was in her darkest places too...she nearly overdosed in my bed twice. The first time made me an hour late for work (but hey, Jess wasn't hurting me and didn't notice if I was going to hang out with Pumpkin outside of work). The second time we took Breanne to the hospital. After leaving Breanne and Jess in the ER I fled to Pumpkin's house because what I'd just witnessed was too much for me to bear. Emergency rooms are terrifying...the night we went there happened to be a couple of other patients who were screaming in agony, not to mention the sight of Breanne high out of her mind on cough syrup, Tylenol and oxys while being hooked up to machines and pumped with fluids to ensure that she didn't die.
This story finally comes to a close at my parents' house, where I had been staying with Jess and the more than occasional Breanne. I didn't complain about him bringing her over, her presence kept the attention off of me and gave me the time to text Pumpkin without worrying about getting caught. Yet, despite my lack of concern, it was still my parents house and they were getting burned out by the inconsistant visiting times. They had never expected their house to turn into a youth hostil.
In a strange twist of fate, my father's war with alcoholism (which he ia now winning) saved me. Jess and Breanne were out of the house and my parents were drunk and fighting. I couldn't deal with the negativity and texted Pumpkin to come and get me. My mom told me to make sure that Jess knew that he couldn't come back to their house. I never looked back. Having been given the chance to fly, I soared.
Pumpkin saved my life, not only because I am no longer at risk for being severely injured, but also because I no longer fell the need to touch the acetaminophen that I used to shovel down my throat to feel numb.
I wish that I would have gotten help, and forced help upon Jess instead of fleeing from the terror, but it's hard to admit that you need help when in your head you're strong enough to deal with the problem.
I would never wish my nightmare on anyone. No girl or boy deserves to be treated like trash or brainwashed into feeling worthless. No child should ever purposely alienate themselves from their parents. Mine didn't know about what was going on because I didn't want them to know. Furthermore, I had also pushed away people who cared about me. People I've known since I was seven years old. Being trapped turned me into a cheating, lying, secretive monster. I wish I had gotten help, butI'm sfe and happy now and that's all that matters.
Now, from the sounds of what you just read, you might draw the conclusion that I need a man to be happy. However, this is not the case. No one needs a special someone in their life to complete them or in order to be happy. Happiness is a contentment and satisfaction with your life, and when you find someone you can truly share your life with who doesn't subtract from the contentment and satisfaction, it makes things that much better. I had already gone through the rebound and emotional detachment from Jess. I had wormed my way into poisonous relationship after poisonous relationship, and then I met a man who took my words away with his mere presence.
Remember, it doesn't matter when you get out of an abusive relationship, what matters is that you get out of it. It's never too late. At 19 years old, I know that abuse doesn't wait for you to grow up and be strong enough to know what to do. Abuse is a boa constrictor that wraps you in a friendly hug and then slowly begins to suffocate you. The only way to be free is to kill the beast. If you become the victim of violence, whether it's abuse in your family or a relationship, or if you are sexually abused or assaulted, remember that it's not your fault. It doesn't make you weak or any less of a person. Whomever is treating you like garbage is committing a crime.
You are strong. You can overcome. Don't be afraid to ask for help, it will save your life.
About the Picture: The photo is of a necklace I made my Senior year during a technology based kind of spirit week (I think it might have been called geek week, but I'm not sure anymore). My English class was in the library (or maybe it was history...it was so long ago) and there was a table set up where you could make jewelry (or whatever) out of old keyboard keys...I made a couple because I needed a break from whichever assignment, but this one was the most profound. *1.N3ED.2.esc...It reads "I need to escape". On the outside I was being creative and artistic, I love weird things like that, but on the inside, I was crying out. I didn't want to be captured, killed and put on display like a rare butterfly, I wanted to fly.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Star Date: November 7, 2013
It has been a long while since my last entry because I haven't had internet. I am excited to share two things with whoever is reading (probably no one at this point lol, but oh well).
By the end of this month I will be publishing my "long awaited" zombie fable, more details to come. And more importantly I'd like to talk about "FERAL". A couple of family friends of mine are currently working on a project, but they need your help! Check it out and pledge, even if it's just a few bucks.
It's been a long time coming but they've finally been able to get something started on kickstarter, a place where you put your ideas and eventually, when enough money is donated, the idea can become a reality.
FERAL is a movie, written by Troy Dunn, about a girl, her autistic brother and the trouble they find in a new town. So check out the trailer, tell your friends and go feral.
By the end of this month I will be publishing my "long awaited" zombie fable, more details to come. And more importantly I'd like to talk about "FERAL". A couple of family friends of mine are currently working on a project, but they need your help! Check it out and pledge, even if it's just a few bucks.
It's been a long time coming but they've finally been able to get something started on kickstarter, a place where you put your ideas and eventually, when enough money is donated, the idea can become a reality.
FERAL is a movie, written by Troy Dunn, about a girl, her autistic brother and the trouble they find in a new town. So check out the trailer, tell your friends and go feral.
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